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LIPPINCOTT 
EDUCATIONAL SERIES 



EDITED BY 

MARTIN G. BRUMBAUGH, Ph.D., LL.D. 

PROFESSOR OF PEDAGOGY, UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA, AND EX-COMMISSIONER 
OF EDUCATION FOR PUERTO RICO 

¥ 
VOLUME IV 



LippiNcoTT Educational Series 



THE 



Educational Theory 



OF 



IMMANUEL KANT 



Translated and Edited 

WITH AN INTRODUCTION 

By 
EDWARD FRANKLIN BUCHNER, Ph.D. (Yale) 

Professor of Philosophy and Education in the University of Alabama 




PHILADELPHIA & LONDON 

J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 



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BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY, PHILADELPHIA, U. 8. A. 



TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE 

Kant continues to be such an important figure in both 
the educational and the cultural tendencies of the preseat 
day that it is not sufficient for one to know the scant 
outlines of some of his views on educational problems, 
as they may be given place in the usual summaries in 
the manuals on the history of education. These views 
should be set forth in their entirety, which has not been 
done hitherto in English. Again, the renewed interest 
in Kant as a great pedagogical Klassiker^ displayed in the 
recent decades by the appearance of several editions of 
his Ueber Pddagogik in Germany and of a translation 
of it in France, and the increasing study of educational 
history by direct appeal to the views of those who have 
moulded that history, offer ample justification for the ap- 
pearance of the present translation. And, finally, the 
contributions which philosophy and philosophers have 
made to the systematic developments of pedagogy 
should be given a larger exploitation than has been done 
hitherto by the students of educational foundations. 

The translation on which the present volume is based 
was made a decade ago as a portion of larger historical 
studies, and without any thought of having it get beyond 
the form of manuscript. In the course of time it re- 
peatedly gave service to students in the fields of the 
history of the Kantian philosophy and of modern edu- 
cational theory. It is hoped that the scope of this 



vi TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE 

double service may now be enlarged by the additions 
and interpretations which have brought the volume to 
its present form. 

It has not been an easy task to put Kant's Ueher Pad- 
agogik into smooth, readable English. Many of the 
sentences in the original are imperfect, being mere notes, 
brief reminders to a lecturer, as it were. Some of the 
free renderings adopted were made necessary by reason 
of the general character of the material. The reader 
can also be profited if he regards many of the Notes as 
literal "texts," which can be made to yield their ripest 
meanings by reflecting upon them as such. 

To the translation of C/e6er Pddagogik I have added, 
in the foot-notes and the appended Selections, — all the 
translations being newly made, — passages from Kant's 
other technical and popular writings. By this means I 
have endeavored to bring together all of the material 
Kant has to offer on the general theme of education. 
From these it will be seen that, after the awakening of 
his educational interest, his views continued to be very 
much in accord with the general scheme laid down in 
the lectures. 

Most of the editions (not including Rink's) of the 
Ueber Pddagogik have been consulted in the prepara- 
tion of the present edition, most assistance, probably, being 
derived from Dr. Vogt's. His editorial novelty of num- 
bering the Sections gives a good articulation to the con- 
tents, and is therefore retained in the present translation. 
The marginations are additions of the present editor. 
The Selections have been taken uniformly, except in the 
few instances otherwise indicated, from Hartenstein's 



TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE vii 

Immanuel KanCs Sdmmtliche Werke^ eight volumes, Leip- 
zig, 1867-1868. The preparation of this volume had 
been completed before Miss Churton's translation in 
Kant on Education came to my hand. 

It is a great pleasure to acknowledge the aid of my 
v^ife, v^hose interest and skill have been of special ser- 
vice in the revision of the translations. I am also in- 
debted to my friends and former colleagues, Professor 
George M. Duncan, of Yale University, for the use of his 
list of the English translations of Kant's writings, which 
he has brought down to date for this volume, and Presi- 
dent G. Stanley Hall, of Clark University, for access to 
special monographs in his private library. 

Edward Franklin Buchner. 
Tuscaloosa, Alabama, October 16, 1903. 



EDITOR'S PREFACE 

Immanuel Kant has profoundly influenced the modern 
world. His system of thought has been discipline and 
inspiration to the culture-aspiring minds of the last 
century. His influence will continue. It is not gen- 
erally known that he applied his philosophical specula- 
tions to the problems of public education. That he 
should do so is not strange. He recognized that educa- 
tion is the source of progress among individuals and 
nations. That he should feel it incumbent to aid con- 
cretely and specifically the great work of education is 
in harmony with his life activities and his philosophic 
theory. 

Two types of pedagogical literature are to be deplored : 
those produced by enthusiasts who lack insight, and 
those produced by theorists who lack sympathy or touch 
with actual educational agencies. The former are usu- 
ally in poor taste and lack due proportion ; they make 
much ado about the "nothings" of education and fail 
to see the broad fundamental principles that condi- 
tion and control true pedagogic progress. The latter 
are usually so far removed from the experience of 
teachers and so attenuated in analysis as to lose all 
vitalizing guidance. Clearly we have constant need of 
treatises with a basis in philosophic insight and with a 
recognition of the fundamentals in the simple phases of 
practical experience. 



X EDITOR'S PREFACE 

Such a contribution Kant here makes. These Lec- 
ture-Notes are of great practical value because they con- 
sistently unfold in outline a rational pedagogical system. 
The vital matter is not wholly what system they un- 
fold, but rather that they do unfold a system. The 
discerning student will be able to supply such details 
on the concrete side as experience affords, and such 
as Kant no doubt supplied in his expositions before his 
class. 

In a sense it is to be regretted that the fuller treatment 
by the masterful thinker is not available. In another 
sense this is matter for congratulation. It leaves the 
student free to think, and it compels analysis and verifi- 
cation. A mastery of the treatise will lead to original 
inquiry and amplification. Such a mastery will eventu- 
ate in the true formulation of a system of educational 
theory in which the essential guidance is supplied and 
the detailed verification is left to the student. Such a 
study will necessarily carry conviction and foster thought. 

The educational doctrines of Hegel and of Herbart have 
been fairly w^ll reported to American educators. The 
educational doctrines of Immanuel Kant are practically 
unknown to the great teaching body of the United States. 
It is unfortunate that one should become acquainted 
with only a part of the German theory of education, and 
as a result attach himself as disciple to this or that 
leader, assuming his name and accepting his doctrines as 
if the whole of educational wisdom were found in the 
works of one man. It is still more unfortunate for 
American teachers to follow blindly in detail any foreign 
system of education. The fundamental quahty of the 



EDITOR'S PREFACE xi 

American school system, especially in its organization 
and administrative aspects, is unique. A study of any 
system of educational thought produces its best results 
by stimulating inquiry and by providing a systematic 
theoretic outline into which experience and reflection 
may cast themselves and by which old and accepted 
theories may mould themselves into new forms. In 
this plan of study current activities may be put to 
rational tests. It is one thing to be a blind and adoring 
follower; it is quite another thing to have an insight 
broad enough to promote rational inquiry and to arrive 
at true conclusions. A study such as this text affords is 
of the most specific value in furthering the loftiest ideals 
of professional inquiry. 

We have no national system of education, nor have 
we as yet a national theory of education. Our varied 
practices, due to local and State control, have given us 
widely divergent views of educational theory. We are 
a great national laboratory, in which, with no uniform 
preparatory training, we have thousands of pedagogic 
experimenters, evolving bit by bit educational ideas of 
varying values. 

If it were possible to train our teachers in funda- 
mental educational law, this diversified study, in its 
many-sided aspects, would eventuate in a system of 
educational doctrine indigenous to our own social and 
civic life ; whence arises the need of wider agitation 
for thorough professional study for our teachers. In 
achieving such a result it is unquestionably wise to 
know all that has been thought by great minds and all 
that has been done by great teachers in the past. To 



xii EDITOR'S PREFACE 

master any educational system is to give the student 
power to master his own experience and to organize it 
into law and set it forth in principles. 

If, as Kant conceives, education signifies training up 
the mind to an ideal, the first problem of the teacher is 
to determine this ideal, and, having once conceived 
clearly what it is, present this conception in clear lan- 
guage. Important as this is as a primary condition of 
all study of educational doctrine, it is usually not seri- 
ously attempted. All that is frequently attempted is to 
seek a definition of this ideal or end in some treatise 
and to memorize it for examination purposes. It might 
be well to consider to what extent such a group of 
memorized words can condition practice. What teacher 
ever consciously and deliberately set to work to realize 
in each pupil such an ideal ? Is it not true that most 
are content to follow^ the day's routine without ever 
dreaming unto what all this activity tends ? Will it 
not mightily modify the burden of routine if into 
daily duties a live ideal is made to fit ? The teleologic 
aspects of educational theory are as yet "more honored 
in the breach than the observance," if, indeed, they are 
not wholly overlooked. 

To fix upon some end, to determine some purpose, 
and then to harmonize all practices therewith are ele- 
ments of primary significance. Such an end will by 
common consent be conceived as an ethical end, and 
no other is worthy of serious thought or attention from 
teachers. The end must be expressed in terms of con- 
duct, — in altruistic service to mankind and in abiding 
faith in the divine order at work in the universe. 



EDITOR'S PREFACE xiii 

Should any one consider this ideal too high, let him 
remember that no one rises to his best in the realm of 
the real and actual who does not vision a great ideal. It 
is well, also, to remember that teachers live so con- 
stantly in the plane of the commonplace that it requires 
all the inspiration of masterful aims to keep teaching 
processes upon the high plane of enthusiastic endeavor. 
No system of educational thought will ever give just the 
right attitude to the treatment of childhood that fails to 
recognize the relation between thought and conduct, 
between life on man's plane and life on God's plane. 
The goal of all thought is conduct. The goal of conduct 
is willing, joyous surrender to the leadings of the infinite. 
And so it is true that the end of all endeavor is to know 
and to enjoy the Divine. 

Dogmatic teaching and pedantry abound in books for 
teachers. Attempts to create a scientific spirit are not 
infi:'equently rendered abortive by the complacent arro- 
gance of superficial training in ready-made methods. 
The literature that creates unrest by arousing inquiry is 
all too rare. It is believed that this volume will do 
much to quicken an interest in fundamental educational 
principles. Dr. Buchner has furnished a carefully ren- 
dered text and wisely guarded guidance. He has suc- 
ceeded in making the author's own views transparent 
to English readers, and in supplying only such addenda 
as a discriminating and devoted teacher finds necessary 
to connect at every essential point the thought of the 
author with the experience and insight of the teacher. 

M. G. B. 



CONTENTS 



Introduction, 



The Chronology of Kant's Life and Important Writings. 11 
History of the "Lecture-Notes on Pedagogy" . . 15 
The Sources of Kant's Educational Theory . . .21 
The Philosophical Basis of Kant's Educational Theory . 29 
Kant's Psychology and his Educational Theory . . 44 
Kant's Evolutional and Educational Theories . . 56 
Kant's Conception of Education . . . . .65 
The Division of Educational Activities . . .73 
The Limitations of Kant's Educational Theory . . 81 
Literature 95 



II 



^SLATioN OF Kant's ''Lecture-Notes on Pedagogy.' 


t 


Introduction 


. 101 


The Treatise 


. 134 


Physical Education .... 


. 137 


Moral Education 


. 185 


Religious Education . . . . . 


. 211 


Conclusion 


. 218 



XV 



XVI 



CONTENTS 



III 

Selections on Education from Kant's other Writings. 

PAGE 

I. Pedagogical Fragments ..... 225 
II. Human Perfection, Human Progress, and the Re- 
lation of Pedagogy to Ethics .... 238 

III. Letters on the Philanthropinum at Dessau . . 242 

IV. Illustrating Kant's Technical Terms . . .247 
V. Music 250 

VI. Memory 252 

VII. Physical Geography 256 

VIII. Knowledge and Logical Methods .... 258 

IX. The Pedagogy of Philosophy . . . .263 

X. The Acquisition of Character .... 268 

XI. Method in Moral Instruction .... 270 

1. Implanting the Idea of Duty . . . 270 

2. " Ethical Didactics" . . . .278 
XII. Moral Instruction and Metaphysics . . . 286 

XIII. Conscience 288 

XIV. Method in JEsthetic Instruction . . . .290 



IV 



Index 



293 



INTRODUCTION 



THE CHRONOLOGY OF KANT'S LIFE 
AND IMPORTANT WRITINGS 

From 1724 to 1804 there was lived in Konigsberg, 
Prussia, the northern frontier post of German civiliza- 
tion, one of the few lives really important for Kant's Life 
the culture of modern times. Every person ^"^^ writings. 
who is struggling in individual efforts to get a substantial 
view of the world and of human life, and, especially, 
every teacher who is seeking the rationale of his art and 
ideals, should know something of the unique and force- 
ful life lived and wrought by Immanuel Kant. That 
life is devoid of those events which usually make biogra- 
phy so interesting. No life could be more simple than 
his ; yet it had a charm which has held the attention 
of the century intervening, and a charm which still cap- 
tivates us. His life was, indeed, unique, being ex- 
pressed in four great interests, — namely, those of a uni- 
versity teacher^ an author, a philosopher, and a man with a 
character. To use a striking modern phrase, he made a 
brilliant '' success" in each of these points.^ 

* It would go too far beyond our present needs to prepare anew 
a memoir of this life. The chronology will be adequate for imme- 
diate reference. The reader will find the following books to con- 

11 



12 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

1724. April 22. Birth of Immanuel Kant at Konigsberg. His 
parents were poor but pious people. 

1732. Kant enters the Collegium Friedericianum. 

1737. Death of Kant's mother. 

1740. Kant completes the course at the school and enters the uni- 
versity in his native city. The institution was rather be- 
lated in its equipment and teaching. 

1746. Death of Kant's father. Kant's first book : Thoughts on 
the True Valuation of Living Forces. 

1746-1755. The uncertain nine years during which Kant served 
as private tutor in a few families of culture, not far dis- 
tant from his native city. 

1755. Kant admitted to the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Kant 
qualifies as aDocent in mathematics, physics, and philoso- 
phy at the university in Konigsberg, presenting his 
New Exposition of the First Principles of Metaphysical 
Knowledge, and giving his first lectures during the 
winter semester of 1755-56. 

It is interesting to note the academic regularity and 
the wide scope of Kant's professional activity. His lec- 
tures covered, as was not altogether uncommon in the 
work of some members of the philosophical faculties of 
one and two centuries ago, the entire range of the theo- 
retical sciences of his time, excluding the historical 
sciences. The following data regarding his lectures, not 
including his private and critical seminaries and exer- 
cises, have been compiled from original sources by 



tain more or less full and clear accounts of his life and works : 
Stuckenburg, Life of Immanuel Kant, London, 1882. Wallace, 
Kant, Blackwood's Philosophical Classics, Edinburgh, 1886. 
Paulsen, Immanuel Kant, His Life and Doctrine. Translated by 
J. E. Creighton and A. Lefevre, Scribner's. New York, 1902. 



KANT'S LIFE AND IMPORTANT WRITINGS 13 

Dr. E. Arnoldt.^ Although somewhat incomplete, they 
set forth Kant's scholastic right to entertain an educa- 
tional theory. This table gives the number of times 
he lectured on the subjects named, giving the first 
and the last semesters respectively. (The double years 
mean winter semesters, the single years summer semes- 
ters.) 

Logic, between 1755-56 and 1796, 54 times. 

Theoretical Physics, between 1755-56 and 1787-88, 20 times. 

Mathematics, between 1755-56 and 1763, 16 times. 

Metaphysics, between 1756 and 1795-96, 49 times. 

Physical Geography, between 1756 and 1796, 46 times. 

Moral Philosophy, between 1756-57 and 1788-89, 28 times. 

Mechanical Sciences, between 1759-60 and 1761, 2 times. 

Natural Right, between 1767 and 1788, 12 times. 

Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, between 1767-68 and 1787, 11 times. 

Mineralogy, 1770-71. 

Anthropology, between 1772-73 and 1795-96, 24 times. 

Pedagogy, between 1776-77 and 1786-87, 4 times. 

Natural Theology, 1785-86. 

1755. A General Natural History and Theory of the Heavens. 
It contained the first presentation of the ' ' nebular hy- 
pothesis," restated independently many years later by 
Laplace, by whose name it is usually known. Kant's 
book remained practically unknown through the failure 
of its publisher. 

1762. Rousseau's Emile appeared, which Kant read, and by which 
he was greatly influenced. 

1764. Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and the Sublime. 
Kant declined the suggested appointment to the professor- 
ship of poetry. 



* Kritische Exkurse im Gebiet der Kantforschung , 1894. 



14 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

1766. Dreams of a Spirit-seer explained by the Dreams of Meta- 
physics. Kant appointed assistant librarian in the royal 
palace. 

1770. Kant promoted to the professorship of logic and metaphysics. 
His Latin dissertation was On the Forms and Principles 
of the Sensuous and the Intellectual Worlds. 

1776. On the Philanthropinum at Dessau. 

1781. Critique of Pure Reason. 

1783. Prolegomena to every Future Metaphysics, etc. 
1784. Idea of a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point of 
View. 

1785. Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals. 

1786. The Probable Beginnings of Human History. 
Metaphysical Foundations of the Natural Sciences. 

1788. Critique of Practical Reason. 

1790. Critique of Judgment. 

1792. On Radical Evil. 

1793. Religion within the Limits of Mere Reason. 

1796. Kant ceased to lecture because of old age. 

1797. The Metaphysics of Ethics, Pt. L The Doctrine of Right, 

Pt. H. The Doctrine of Virtue: 
On a Supposed Right to Lie from Humanitarian Motives. 

1798. Anthropology with Reference to Pragmatic Ends. 
1800. Logic (edited by Jasche). 

1802. Physical Geography (edited by Rink). 

1803. On Pedagogy (edited by Rink). 

1804. February 12. The death of Kant in Konigsberg. 



HISTORY OF THE "LECTURE-NOTES 
ON PEDAGOGY" 

The educational theory entertained by Kant, consid- 
ered from one point of view, is rather an indefinite 
quantity. It stands as the sum-total of his 

^ '' The Scope of 

labors in the interest of science and of Kant's Educa- 
human destiny. The dependence of man *^°^*^ "^^^^^y- 
upon the formative influences of experience constituted 
for Kant the chief reason for giving attention to the 
structure of that experience. It was thus that the care- 
ful elaboration of his theoretical views on the nature of 
science, philosophy, morality, and art represents the 
great overflow of his interest in education into the basic 
channels of human speculation. The author of the 
Critical Philosophy herein becomes one of the few great 
men of history who have affirmed that there is a philo- 
sophical basis to a true pedagogy. 

The educational theory vindicated by Kant's sys- 
tematic and technical scientific efforts represents the 
larger setting of his views on education. 

^ ® His University 

These, fortunately, received their definite Lectures on 
expression in the lectures on pedagogy Pedagogy. 
which he gave to the university students in Konigsberg 
during four semesters between the winters of 1776- 
1777 and 1786-1787, according to the dates estab- 
lished by the researches of Dr. Arnoldt. The external 
origin of these lectures is to be found in an old rule at 
the university, which required one of the professors of 

16 



16 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

the philosophical faculty to give lectures publice on 
pedagogy, two hours a week, to the students.^ This 
requirement was met by Kant four different times. 
The arrangement of rotation was given up when Her- 
bart, as Kant's successor to the chair of philosophy, 
gave all the lectures on pedagogy himself. 

Kant began to lecture on pedagogy to thirty auditors 

on October 23, 1776, and continued until March 19, 

1777. The title of his course was Pdda- 

The Origin of 

UeberPdda- ffogik ubev Basedow's Methodenhuch} After 
gogik. 1780 he used a book by his former col- 

league. Dr. F. S. Bock, Lehrbuch der Erziehungskunst. 
We know practically little or nothing in detail about 
the actual lectures given on the general theme of 
pedagogy, beyond the fact that they were repeated 
three times, and beyond the contents of the literary re- 
mains translated below under the title Lecture-Notes 
on Pedagogy. Kant's method of lecturing was to use 
an acceptable text-book, and to expand it, without 
necessarily accepting its principles, by the aid of his 
own notes inserted on the margins and between the 
lines. He was also in the habit of jotting down much 
of his lecture material on loose pieces of paper, which 
served him in his lectures. These ''sketches," as 
Hartenstein calls them, were published at Easter, 1803, 
— like his treatise on Logic, — because of the desire 



^ It is not improbable that the government order establishing 
this rule had its constraining example in the pedagogical seminary 
which Gesner instituted at Gottingen (about 1735 ff.). 

'Arnoldt, Ibid., pp. 572, 573. 



THE "LECTURE-NOTES ON PEDAGOGY" 17 

of some of his later pupils, who were very anxious that 
none of Kant's teachings should be lost. This loose 
pedagogical material was given to Theodor Rink/ who 
alone seems responsible in his editing for the arrange- 
ment given to the notes, which were published under 
the title Immanuel Kant^ Ueber Pddagogik. Rink's 
arrangement cannot be looked upon as perfect, nor can 
it be held that it represents the order in which Kant 
gave his lectures. At the same time, Kant cannot be 
excused from his share of the responsibility for the 
logical imperfections in his Notes. It can well be be- 
lieved, however, that the attention^ given by the more 
recent editors to these Notes has resulted in giving 
them as complete an order as they really contain.^ 

It has been a question as to when Kant put his hand 
last to these Notes and gave them their " finishing 
touch," if they can be said to possess one. 
In his preface. Rink remarks that the book Lecture-Notes 
would be "more interesting" and "more to ms Mental 

^ Development. 

exhaustive" if Kant's time for lecturing on 

the subject had not been as limited as it actually was, 

and if he had only found opportunity to develop the 



^ Rink was a university student at Konigsberg from 1786 to 
1789. In 1792-93 he was frequently a guest at Kant's table. 
He was again in Konigsberg, holding the university posts of 
privat-docent and extraordinary professor of philosophy and theol- 
ogy from 1795 to 1801. From his earliest residence there he con- 
tinued a close student of Kant's philosophy. From 1801 to 1811 
he was a preacher in Danzig, where he died. 

^ See the separate editions mentioned in the literature at the end 
of the Introduction, p. 96. 

2 



18 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

subject of education.^ The repeated divisions of educa- 
tional activity, which were left standing without any- 
marked attempt at solidifying them into one broad, 
sweeping view of education with which they were to be 
coordinated, may, perhaps, be taken as an indication 
that Kant took a new departure as he approached the 
problem of education at successive times. Willmann 
suggests that he did not revise his notes on pedagogy at 
any time after the middle of the eighties, which would 
be after the last course of lectures on pedagogy given by 
him.^ The chief ground on which this suggestion rests 
is the fact that not one of the many divisions of the fac- 
tors in education mentions the table of the twelve cate- 
gories, first published in 1781, which Kant was in the 
habit of applying to all sorts of scientific material. 

On the other hand, there seems to be several sugges- 
tions within these Notes tending to show that Kant did 
not neglect this product of his earlier academic interests. 
His own foot-note — note 2, Section 69 (p. 173) — refers 
to works dated 1801 and 1802. His theory of the men- 
tal faculties, so far as contained in these Notes^ is the 
psychology which grew apace in his later years rather 
than that fully accredited in the seventies and the 
early eighties. And, finally, the towering conception of 
morality on which he makes education rest, both theo- 
retically and practically, is the morality which he ex- 
pounded late rather than early in the critical stage of 



^ This preface is reprinted in Hartenstein's edition of Ueber 
Pddagogik, viii. pp. 455, 456. 

' Immanuel Kant, Ueber Pddagogik, p. 118, note 19. 



THE ''LECTURE-NOTES ON PEDAGOGY" 19 

his own development. I have endeavored to scatter 
throughout my foot-notes the dates of the composition 
of those passages from his other writings selected for 
comparison with the views expressed in the text. These 
dates will also aid the reader in framing his own conclu- 
sions on this general question. 

The much more interesting and vital point is this : 
What is the internal origin of Kant's educational theory ? 
When did Kant develop an interest in peda- 

^ TIT I 1 •! n J • Kant's Funda- 

gogy? Mere external necessity — that is, mental interest 
academic obedience to an old rule — will in the Problems 

of Education. 

not alone account for these Lecture-Notes. 
Further than this we have scarcely any data for definite 
assertions. It is true that his earliest writings show that 
he had at least a current interest in education as one of 
the proper topics with which human understanding 
should engage itself. There is also his own experience 
of nine years as a private tutor in several families near 
his native city, which put him into possession of 
much practical knowledge of the need and possibilities 
of instruction and training. It may even safely be 
affirmed that his interest in education definitely ante- 
dated the lectures ; for during those earlier years of 
the sixties, often called his " empirical" stage by his 
biographers, he was familiar with Montaigne and Rous- 
seau, the latter effecting a great change in his mind, if 
one can judge by some of the fragments he left. More 
unquestionable still, as an index of the inner growth of 
his educational interest, is the announcement of his 
lectures for the winter of 1765-66, which is a veritable 
profession, and confession, of pedagogical faith. As may 



20 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

be seen from the translated passages in Selections VII. 
and IX., he set forth a high ideal for his own teaching in 
demanding that youth should be taught, not mere infor- 
mation, but how to think. Here is where education 
was regarded as that definite, formative experience 
which makes man to be what he can in reality be. 
Kant, as it were, having been awakened by various in- 
fluences to the problem of education, one is left to 
wonder why this interest did not survive with its first 
enthusiasm, and lead him to develop the question sys- 
tematically and exhaustively. 

Finally, and much more suggestive than all the fore- 
going indications, is the fact that Kant had a perennial 
interest in education and the relation of its practices to 
the philosophical doctrines which he was slowly working 
out in the eighties. The scope of this interest can 
easily be gathered from the fact that numerous pas- 
sages in his technical writings have direct reference to 
education, from his many (undated) fragments, and from 
his frequent allusions to the office of the teacher. And 
one should not fail to take account of the pedagogical 
value to him of his active academic career which stretched 
out over forty years. Regarded from these points of 
view, educational theory is an essential item in Kant's 
views on man, and not a mere accident of his office. 
It is in this sense, and with this full justification, that 
Davidson ^ has set him forth as the most important his- 
torical individual in the whole of modern education. 

^ A History of Education, New York, 1900, pp. 220-224. 



THE SOURCES OF KANT'S EDUCATIONAL 
THEORY 

Whence did Kant derive his theory of education? 
From one point of view, his contribution to the philo- 
sophical phases of educational problems has 

^ ^ . . . The Origin of 

been so characteristically his own that such Kant's Educa- 
a question can receive its only answer by a '^°°^^ ^^^^^' 
direct appeal to the concourse of ideas which constitutes 
the system of philosophy created in his later years. On 
the other hand, it is true that there were definite outside 
influences operating upon him which display themselves 
in some of the different features of his conception of 
the foundation, method, and goal of education. If one 
sweeps his glances over the Lecture-Notes and the Selec- 
tions, he will readily see that those great features whose 
sources are in question are these. The Introduction 
exploits a new contrast between the natural origin of 
man and his possession of a characterizing reason as the 
foundation of pedagogy, and critically points out the 
limitations of the then current theories and practices. 
In physical education, the naturalism of Rousseau is 
unquestionably reproduced. Mind training is set apart 
on the basis of his own psychology, and moral and 
religious education are discussed in accordance with the 
scientific principles of his own discovery. From begin- 
ning to end, there is a continuous emphasis placed upon 
the education of the individual, not in his solitude, but 

21 



22 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

as a man, as a citizen, and as a member of a kingdom 
of ethical ends. 

An attempt to enumerate the sources of these views 

must include both men and Kant's own experience as a 

^ ^ ^ teacher. Of the men most likely to have 

The Influence *' 

of Men and his had an influence upon him in this connec- 
Expenence. {[qyi^ we must name Montaigne, Rousseau, 
and Basedow and his associates. There were other 
men whose conceptions bore in upon Kant, but they are 
not of prime importance here. The second group of 
sources includes his years of experience as a private 
tutor and as a public university teacher, his keen powers 
of observation and analysis, out of which grew his An- 
thropology, — a great repository for pedagogical material, 
— and the conclusions of his philosophical reflections. 
The effects of some of these influences are more or less 
clearly traceable in his educational discussions, while 
others necessarily lie buried far beneath the surface. 

With Montaigne Kant was very familiar. For a time 

this advocate of definite educational ends was one of his 

favorite authors. Kant was probably the 

His Relations ^ '' 

to Three "Re- most illustrious " disciplc" of Rousscau, as 
formers." j^^ -^ ^^^ infrequently called. The £^mile 

produced a great impression upon him ; so great that he 
gave up his daily afternoon walks while reading it, — so 
the story runs. (See Selection I., Fragments Nos. 25, 
28, 42, 43, 55.) The Philanthropinists received his en- 
thusiastic support in calling for public subscriptions, and 
confirmed his belief in the necessity of making scientific 
experiments in the whole field of education. (See Se- 
lection III.) His adoption of the orbis pictus idea in 



SOURCES OF KANT'S EDUCATIONAL THEORY 23 

language instruction may also have been derived from 
the experiments at the Institute of Dessau. 

Kant's own activity gave him the right of first-hand 
experience to entertain an educational theory. How 
much his theory may be an outcome of his His Experience 
reflections upon his own experiences it is and his Theory. 
not easy to state definitely.^ Section 34 very probably 
is a direct recollection of his nine years spent as a pri- 
vate tutor. We know little or nothing of these years, 
passed, it is said, in at least three families of culture, 
which opened to his view the life of the world in a 
larger way than he had ever experienced before. He 
said of himself later, that there could never have been 
a worse tutor in the world than himself, because he 
could not even apply those pedagogical rules which he 
knew. Nevertheless, he may well be regarded as know- 
ing both educational virtues and vices at first hand. His 
pedagogical reaction against Pietism also stands out 
rather clearly in Sections 106 and following. 

Kant was also aware of some of the special problems 
connected with the higher training of the adolescent. 
In the Lecture-Notes this latest stage of education is 
not touched upon beyond mention of its earlier begin- 

1 It would be fair to ask how far the home and school training 
of Kant may have influenced his educational theory ; but the data 
to answer such a question are not ascertainable, except, perhaps, 
in the tribute he paid late in his life to the memory of his ' ' honest, 
morally exemplary and estimable" parents, who, he said, "gave 
me an education, which on its moral side could not possibly have 
been better, and for which I am profoundly thankful every time I 
think of it." — Hartenstein, viii. p. 805. 



24 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

nings at puberty. In Selections VII. and IX. especially, 
Kant's early recognition of the great duty of a univer- 
sity to the youth within its walls is clearly set forth. 
Kant himself was a most interesting teacher, making 
lasting impressions upon his students. The glowing tes- 
timony of Herder to his marked pedagogic powers, even 
before his advancement to the professorship, is sup- 
ported in the tributes paid by later students. This in- 
fluence can hardly be regarded as solely due to peda- 
gogic instincts which he might have possessed, for he 
consciously strove towards the great aim of awakening 
his students to ripe individual thinking. The extent of 
Kant's insight into the prime need for educational 
reforms, particularly in the universities, is easily to be 
gathered from the fact that he strove to bring about a 
complete change in both the aim and the spirit of that 
instruction. Although he was trained in early youth 
under the strong influences of Pietism, he now came to 
be the vibrant voice which called most loudly in the 
eighteenth century for an education which should be in- 
spired by, and organized under, the new ideal of the 
worth and beauty of a free humanity. The Aufkldrung 
of the century, which struggled against the concepts of 
"the useful," either in religion or in industry, thus 
found its champion and " its victor," as Paulsen calls 
Kant, in the new humanism which has inspired the 
education, both elementary and higher, of the nine- 
teenth century. The source of this view is not to be 
found in any particular psychological spring, nor did it 
break forth at a particular moment whose date can be 
fixed. But that Kant became its civilizing oracle is the 



SOURCES OF KANT'S EDUCATIONAL THEORY 25 

fact of historical importance in education. Indeed, the 
very construction and the influence of the Critical Phi- 
losophy itself are supremely questions of a true and a 
higher pedagogy. 

It remains to speak a little more fully of the in- 
fluence of Rousseau, the fiery apostle of nature, upon 
Kant, the pedagogue. The not uncommon Kant and 

habit of historians is to regard Kant as Rousseau, 
merely working out the impressions made upon him by 
the author of ^ile} But to set this down as the source 
of his educational theory goes far beyond the historical 
warrant, as the following scheme of the agreements and 
disagreements on points in educational theory of the two 
thinkers amply shows. 

Kant and Rousseau agree in regarding pedagogy as a 
form of human interest whose foundations must lie as 



* Compayre is given to regarding Kant in this light in his His- 
toire Critique des Doctrines de V Education en France depuis le 
seizi^me Silcle, cinquieme ed., tome ii., Paris, 1885, pp. 94-100, 
and also in his The History of Pedagogy, Eng. trans., Boston, 
1889, pp. 333 ff. 

Duproix also represents Kant's extreme dependence upon Rous- 
seau in his Kant et Fichte et le probllme de V Education, Geneva, 
1895, Chapter iii. 

No less a writer than Davidson, for example, entertains this 
opinion in its extreme form. After Kant was aroused by Hume, 
* ' He drew his chief inspiration from Rousseau. ' ' Specifying a 
few features of the Kantian system of ideas, he adds, " It is hardly 
an exaggeration, therefore, to say that Kant, in his three Cri- 
tiques, does little more than present in philosophical garb the lead- 
ing doctrines of Rousseau." — Rousseau, etc., New York, 1898, pp. 
224, 225. 



26 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

deep as the human nature it attempts to modify, rather 
than as comprising a set of voluntary quibblings and 
Their Points of carpings about the way of doing this or that 
Agreement. particular task of school routine. They also 
agree on the necessity for a fresh start in establishing 
the principles of education. Kant follows Rousseau in 
starting with the very beginnings of infancy (an almost 
pre-scientific child-study). Both are partial to a re- 
stricted and "negative" education during the early years 
of the child's hfe. When education can at all appeal 
positively to the child, the methods sketched and rules 
laid down spring from a rather common belief in the 
promise and potency of " self-activity." Each seems to 
approach the other in the idea of the "physical culture" 
of the mind, and they unite in the interdiction of ro- 
mances. In moral and religious education there appears 
a certain approximation of Kant's views to those of 
Rousseau ; but he soon departs from his " master" in 
both items. To Kant, morality requires its pedagogical 
beginnings in discipline, the first true step in education, 
and religious instruction is necessary even as an expe- 
dient for social respect. He not only accepts Rousseau's 
idea of natural punishments, but adds to these both posi- 
tive and artificial modes of discipline, as being necessary, 
if education is to fit man for life. We may add, finally, 
that Kant does at times make use of Rousseau's thoughts, 
even of his words and phrases. 

Not only do we find Kant making additions to some 
of those points on which he is in agreement with Rous- 
seau; but, if we look to the other side of their rela- 
tions, we shall discover Kant to be one of the sharpest 



SOURCES OF KANT'S EDUCATIONAL THEORY 27 

critics the paradoxical naturalist in pedagogy ever had. 
With Rousseau, the end of education was the production 
and the perfection of the man known to ^j^^.^. p^.^^g ^^ 
naturalism ; with Kant, moral idealism alone Disagreement, 
enclosed the secret goal of man's pedagogical develop- 
ment. Both writers used the word " liberty" as descrip- 
tive of man's essence. Yet how differently each applied 
it, both to the culture of his age and to the norms of logic 
and psychology ! Rousseau starts with society, and works 
back to nature ; Kant first examines nature and savagery, 
and constructively feels his way upward to an ethically 
constituted social whole. The reformer esteemed all 
nature " good" as it comes from the hand of its Author. 
The philosopher declares man to be neither good nor 
bad at birth, and traces the origin of the bad to a lack 
of rules in formative training. One praises barbarity, 
and attempts to usher in the time when nature shall be 
allowed to work out her own potencies unhindered by 
human ideas and the conventionalities of a social edu- 
cation. Instinct and inclination are key-words in this 
process. The other, while starting with nature, shows 
how weak are instincts and how rude is savagery, and 
thus invokes the intelligence of which man is in need in 
order properly to direct those instincts in him, which 
are less trustworthy than they are in animal nature. 
For him reason and duty are to triumph over both 
instinct and inclination. Hence, Kant shows how edu- 
cation is a positive constructive force in human character, 
in the formation of which it is more prominent in his 
theory than it is in Rousseau's. In morals, and in the 
education for morality, they differ even more widely: 



28 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

Rousseau's pedagogical ethics is all sympathy, as the 
tap-root, which Kant rejects as unbefitting a truly ethical 
character. And, finally, in the details of educational 
routine, the Swiss banishes books and studies and closes 
schools, whereas the German sees in instruction and in 
intellectual organization the great pedagogical promise of 
character, and hopes for the early day when true schools 
shall be a welcoming shelter for a youthful humanity 
growing into its highest values and beauty. 

Such, indeed, within the narrower field of educational 
theory, not to go into the wider range of philosophical 
doctrine, is the alleged Rousseaulian discipleship of 
Kant! 



THE PHILOSOPHICAL BASIS OF KANT'S 
EDUCATIONAL THEORY 

The Kant known to the history of the development 
of modern thought and science is Kant the author of 
the Critical Philosophy, and not Kant the 
educational theorist. His services to meta- tionai influ- 
physics in general have been the contribu- ^^^® °* ^^"^'^ 

^ "^ ° Philosophy. 

tion to our modern intellectual heritage 
v^rhich has received chief attention. These have, both 
in direct and in devious ways, irradiated over almost all 
forms of modern culture and achievement, and it is 
incumbent upon us to see how Kant's profounder in- 
quiries may have been contributive to the foundations 
of an educational theory. 

Davidson's enthusiasm is strong when he declares, 
" The presiding genius of the spiritual life of the nine- 
teenth century is Kant, the modern Socrates. ... He 
gathered up in himself, and did his best to harmonize, 
all the forward movements of the three preceding cen- 
turies. ... It was no longer (the question of old). 
How does the world get into the mind ? but, How does 
it get out of the mind ? — no longer. How does the mind 
appropriate a world already existing ? but. How does it 
build up any world of which it can predicate existence ? 
Kant saw that this was as great a change in the spiritual 
world as the Copernican astronomy had been in the 
material. According to this new view, education is no 

29 



30 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

longer world-appropriation, but world-building. Each 
man, by his own mental processes, builds up his own 
world. The question is. How is this done ? and Kant 
undertakes to reply." ^ 

Kant's reply was given in the three chief instalments 
of Transcendentalism : the Critique of Pure Reason^ 
Outlines of his ^^^ Critique of Practical Reason, and the 
Philosophy. Critique of Judgment. The author of these 
epoch-making books exploited a new method in 
philosophizing, — namely, criticism, — and applied a new 
touch-stone of truth, — namely, reason. In the results of 
an interpenetrating combination of these two guides are 
to be found, if at all, the philosophical basis of his edu- 
cational theory. He raised three fundamental and 
searching questions. How is it that man can have 
knowledge ? or. How are his various sciences of nature 
and of himself possible ? How is human conduct to be 
understood in the light of the nature of knowledge ? or, 
How must man act, possessing the sciences he has? 
And, finally. How are the two realms of knowledge and 
action, of nature and conduct, related in the unitary 
experience of the living individual ? 

To answer each question, Kant took a whole, single 
Critique. The first question led him to an epistemo- 
logical view of the world ; the second, to an ethical 
view ; and the third, to an aesthetical and teleological 
view. His answers spring from a subjective analysis of 
the knower, the actor, and the feeler, and not from an 
objective observational tour of the world of nature as 

^ A History of Education, pp. 220 ff. 



PHILOSOPHICAL BASIS OF KANT'S THEORY 31 

the object of our science, the condition of our behaviors, 
and the source of our typical satisfactions. 

The first Critique defended human science by de- 
claring it to be but a mirror of that nature which is a 
creature of man's understanding. Finite cnuque of Pure 
reason is discovered to be a beehive of neason. 

knowing activities. It comes upon the dawning confines 
of experience with a definite equipment for making the 
world. Our perception by the senses is a compound 
of sensations, imagination, and understanding. Space 
and time are but forms of our inner experience. The 
intellect has twelve ways of making rules for telling 
what a given object shall prove to be, which are the 
twelve categories. Reason here comes in with its over- 
rulmg and unifying activities, making our " knowledge" 
a composite of particular sciences of natural objects, 
and of ideals of those supposed realities lying beyond 
the visible, known world. 

The second Critique goes even further, and, declaring 
man to have a double character, one lying completely 
above the region of sense, science, and time, critique of Prac- 
defends the laws of the will, or the reason in ^^<^°' Reason. 
conduct, as being truthful. Human actions are not the 
mere corollaries of the principles of the different sci- 
ences ; but they are the absolute requirements of the 
supreme law of duty, or conscience. Indeed, it is a 
" categorical imperative" which presides over the inner 
self and its relations of will to other selves. Here 
we have transcendental freedom and true character ; 
whereas in intellect we have incessant and necessary 
conditions which must be fulfilled before knowledge 



32 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

is gained. Thus it happens that duty and the moral 
law are more truly representative of man's nature and 
the destiny of his earthly career than the intellect and 
the acquisition of knowledge. Man's soul is will, not 
intellect, chiefly. But this rational will must be deter- 
mined and arranged before the individual has any ex- 
perience. The "purity" of the categories of the intel- 
lect is far exceeded by the transcendental " purity" of 
the moral law and its persistent call to duty. " Experi- 
ence" is thus defined in terms of certain factors which 
lie outside of, and are known previous to, experi- 
ence. 

The second Critique carried out the spirit and the 
method introduced by the first, and thus constitutes an 
integral portion of Kantian philosophy. Reason as 
knowing, and reason as willing, however, stood at vari- 
ance in the system. The latter brought back in affirma- 
tion what the former set forth in negation, — at least in 
limitation, — but failed to bridge the chasm thus created. 

The third Critique appeared as an attempt to harmo- 
nize man's rational and practical (i.e., moral) natures. 
Critique of This was accomplished by a special treat- 
judgment meut of thosc pcculiar forms of feeling satis- 
factions which are involved in the highest exercise of 
"judgment," and especially by a declaration of the 
double relation of feeling — namely, to intellect, on the one 
hand, and to will, on the other — as a definite psycholog- 
ical truth. Beauty and purpose, art and teleology, thus 
become the crowning feature of the critical exploitation 
of human nature. The philosophy thus developed is, 
as Ziegler well puts it, "no philosophy for children, and 



PHILOSOPHICAL BASIS OF KANT'S THEORY 33 

yet it is the corner-stone and foundation of our entire 
modern philosophizing." ^ 

The reader of Kant's educational theory is doubtless 
struck by the apparent absence in it of almost all his 
peculiar philosophical tenets. At the same his Pedagogy 
time, one is ready to ask, How is a peda- ^^endlnt'of 
gogy possible in his philosophical system? ws Philosophy. 
This search for universal principles hardly seems ger- 
mane to the labors of the educationist, who must deal 
concretely with individuals. How can there be any con- 
nection whatsoever between the a priori categories of 
the intellect and the transcendental freedom of the will, 
on the one hand, and the conditions of the develop- 
ment under which alone education can take place, on the 
other ? Would not those two doctrines make forever 
impossible — in fact, simply preclude — all education and 
training ? 

In the first place, and negatively, we must not con- 
found the Kant of the Lecture-Notes with the Kant of 
the Critiques ; nor does a recognition of a philosophical 
basis to the former necessarily involve an immediate 
acceptance of the latter. Moreover, one should not 

^ Geschichte der Pddagogik, ErsterBd. , 1st Abth. of Baumeister's 
Handbuch der Erziehungs- und Unterrichtslehre fur hohere Schulen, 
Munchen, 1895, p. 246. 

For a detailed statement of how Kant answered his three great 
questions, the reader is referred to the biographies mentioned and 
to the various histories of philosophy accessible in English, such 
as Ueberweg, Falkenberg, Weber, etc. Paulsen has brought to- 
gether the latest results of the numerous investigations and dis- 
cussions relating to Kant's system. 

3 



34 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

make the great blunder of supposing that Kant first 
worked out his philosophy, and then, proceeding on this 
as a basis, deliberately elaborated his rules as to how 
man should be handled in order to become educated 
as a mere corollary thereto. This is largely untrue 
historically ; and the internal evidence presented in the 
Lecture-Notes makes it somewhat improbable that he 
completely reworked them into adaptation to the con- 
clusions of both speculative and practical philosophy. 
Furthermore, it is true that the place and function which 
were given in the Critical Philosophy to education, as an 
object of metaphysical inquiry, are practically nil. It has 
also repeatedly been held that there is a violent contra- 
diction between affirming the need of education for man, 
and discovering man to have a mechanically operative 
reason, which would resist all attempts at instruction, 
and a transcendental freedom, which would forever 
make impossible the training of will and the acquisition 
of character. Transcendental freedom, indeed, has been 
stormed and battered again and again in educational 
literature, particularly the Herbartian. As a final con- 
sideration to support the position that it is erroneous to 
speak of a philosophical basis to his pedagogy, one could 
point out the fact that Kant himself has apparently 
denied any philosophical virtue in education. Among 
the various modes of determining conduct recognized in 
the Critique of Practical Reason.,^ Kant mentions Mon- 
taigne's view, which took education — an " external, sub- 
jective, practical, material principle of determination" 

^ Hartenstein, v. p. 43. 



PHILOSOPHICAL BASIS OF KANT'S THEORY 35 

— as the foundation of morality. This he rejected, on 
the ground that it is "empirical," and therefore cannot 
furnish "the universal principle of morality." 

On the other hand, and affirmatively, Kant was a 
pedagogue in the fullest and best sense of the term, and 
is another brilliant instance of the double But they are 
truth that the true teacher must be philo- cioseiy related. 
sophical, and that the true philosopher finds a peren- 
nial theme in the problems of education. That there is 
a close relation between his creed of transcendentalism 
and his deep interest in a worthy education is indicated 
in a forceful manner by the not infrequent efforts of 
numerous later pedagogical writers to set aside, or at 
least to revise, many of his principles of philosophy. 
The Herbartian era was well saturated with this Kant- 
phobia, which persists in our present-day method of 
working out the scope and needs of human education 
from the "scientific" point of view. 

The suspicion in favor of Kant, thus apt to be 
aroused, grows into positive conviction when one re- 
views the many indications which show him Kant's inter- 
to have been true to the aims of pedagogy. ^.^tSi/peda- 
Kant was a pedagogue both by the necessity gogicai. 

of law and particularly by taste, the latter appearing a 
decade earher than the former. He did not belong to 
the type of the musty, dry-as-dust professor, who might 
have spun out his pedagogical cobwebs with the indif- 
ference of mere abstraction. He was a pedagogue both 
by precept and by practice. He wanted to teach stu- 
dents "to think," and to develop their personalities into 
independence of school mechanism. He taught no 



36 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

fixed and closed system of philosophy, but strove to 
awaken the impulse to, and to develop the capacity for, 
philosophical investigation. He was Socratic in his 
practice, but he did not exploit his own theories at the 
expense of his pupils and other academic opportunities. 
His great books likewise attest his pedagogical instincts 
and insights. They each had a part on " method," and, 
as an author, he did not fail to address himself to the 
problem of how the doctrines he developed so ab- 
stractly could be fitted to the practical needs of man.^ 
Indeed, Kant was a pedagogue throughout the whole 
Critical Philosophy, which was chiefly an affair of 
method. In this achievement he became a true teacher, 
not of single individuals in a class-room, but of an age, 
a nation, and, in truth, of the occidental race of men. 
By closing up certain blind alleys of speculation, he 
turned intellectual impulses into the great channels of 
productivity marking the nineteenth century. Can we 
not thus say, with full biographical, professional, and 
scientific reason, that Kant, even as the author of the 
philosophy of critical idealism, would have been a peda- 
gogue without having ever thought about, or lectured 
upon, pedagogics ? Yes. For every important system 
of philosophy inevitably contains the germs of a peda- 
gogy, which manifest their influences sooner or later. 

^ This is most clearly a feature of the second Critique (see 
Selection XI. i.). Also, in the Prolegomena to Eve7'y Future Meta- 
physics (1783), it is the pedagogical conception and interest 
which spring first into mind. The book was prepared, not for the 
use of students, but for future teachers, to help them to discover 
the science. — Hartenstein, iv. p. 3. 



PHILOSOPHICAL BASIS OF KANT'S THEORY 37 

No philosopher can thus escape being of the greatest 
interest in the history of education. Besides this, the 
Critical Philosophy and its accessory writings are well 
filled with pedagogical material, both by way of direct 
reference to the work of teaching and by way of an ex- 
hibition of certain postulates of education. 

It is no real accident in academic culture which 
brings philosophy and education together. The peda- 
gogical reasons for doing so in particular 
eras and institutions speedily give way, upon and Educa- 
reflection, to more solid reasons for this ^'°°* 

union. The determination of man's being and be- 
coming, and of the destiny it is for him to actualize in 
his own life and in the life of his species, is thin and 
abstract if it has no reference whatever to the art of 
training him. On the contrary, any effort made to 
facilitate and promote man's adaptation to his environ- 
ment and approximation to this destiny is ^re-human if 
it forgets to link and to subordinate itself to an intelli- 
gent description of the conditions under which the 
potencies in him can alone become dynamic, moving 
outward and upward. From this point of view, one is 
enabled to see why the philosophy projected by Kant, 
which is so often thought to be formal, schematic, is, in 
truth, contentful for the great task of stirring the higher 
pedagogic life of the race. The education that at all 
touches human nature can no longer, since his time, be 
even conceived of as a mere exchange, or as making 
merchandise, of routine information. On the contrary, 
the basis of his educational theory, which must be re- 
garded as larger than his lectures on pedagogy, resides 



38 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

in his philosophical interpretation of man and his life as 
demanding an ever-increasing pedagogical aspiration for 
the ideals of experience thereby justified. Only a few 
features of the educational postulates defended by his 
philosophy can receive summary notice here. 

1. Kant's philosophical subjectivism,^ both in its method 
and in its immediate results, is the corner-stone of his 
Educational educational theory. The possibility and the 
Postulates con- j-^^j^g ^^ humau education were by him first 

tnbuted by his '' 

Philosophy. determined in an exploitation of this last 
advance upon man's inner citadel. If we say, with 
some historians, that Socrates was the founder of peda- 
gogy because of his treatment of its relations to ethics, 
we must add that Kant completed the foundations thus 
begun by carrying to a finish the momentum of an anal- 
ysis of the inner life. 

2. The first Critique, in undertaking a special study 
of the structure of human knowledge, resulted in a dis- 
covery of epistemology, and thus necessarily dealt with 
methods of thought (conditions of instruction), knowl- 
edge, science, and nature, and their relations, both real 
and ideal, to human efforts. Out of this work the fol- 
lowing principles and influences became accredited to 
educational theory : 

(a) The gi-eat creative power of the activity of pure 
reason was declared. Its productivity is the basis of all 
science and the true problem of philosophy. If nature 
is made by reason, education must deal, in principle, 
with the latter and not with the former. Instruction is 
seen to be more and more an affair of inner experience 
and less and less an affair of objects and so-called 



PHILOSOPHICAL BASIS OF KANT'S THEORY 39 

"content." Hence pedagogics can become "genetic" 
only in the light of a knowledge of the order of reason's 
activities. " Self-activity" has never received a greater 
vindication than in this Critique. From this resulted 

(b) The centralization of the individual mind in the 
worlds of both nature and human society. Here edu- 
cation comes into the possession of a new, determining 
ideal. A "master" pedagogy of the spirit, to use the 
terms of Nietzsche, must replace the " slave" pedagogy 
of things. 

(c) Nature^ or science^ becomes educative only because 
of its constructive appeal to reason^ and not because an 
encyclopedic acquaintance with its facts is ever a bare 
possibility. Or, vice versa^ knowledge of principles, and 
not of objective facts, is alone educative. Inductive 
criticism, which begins with the environmental data, 
and moves upward even to the ideals involved in every 
generalization, thus becomes an educational require- 
ment, which is only now being fully met with in the 
widening application of " scientific" instruction. It 
should not be forgotten that these foundations of his 
theory manifested themselves most effectively through his 
larger influence upon later philosophy and science, and 
through them percolated down to educational practices. 

In one particular, at least, this Critique had direct 
effect upon education. School instruction in mathe- 
matics, both in theory and in practice, became modified 
in accordance with the influence exercised by its first 
part, the Transcendental ^Esthetics, which presented the 
theory of the intra-mental, non-empirical origin of space 
and time, and thus of geometry and arithmetic. 



40 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

3. Reason^ although it is the titular phrase of tran- 
scendentalism, declaring the epoch in which it origi- 
nated, is no less a contributor to the foundations of 
education. Here "pure reason'' becomes rational ca- 
pacity at human birth, and " harmonious development" 
and " perfection" the process and the goal which inspire 
instruction. With Kant, reason is primarily something 
functional^ and hence not an empirical content or enu- 
meration, which is so frequently the criticism brought 
against it, along with the mistaken interpretation of it as 
"innate," and mere "form." Reason is a necessary 
pedagogical factor in psychological integration, which is, 
or ought to be, the growing ideal of every true teacher. 
Kant's philosophy, so uniformly regarded as merely 
based on a mechanically operative reason, is, in truth, a 
philosophy of will^ which is the only fitting psychological 
term for the "transcendental apperception" of the first 
Critique. And a will philosophy alone can adequately 
underlie and support a pedagogy that shall be con- 
sistent with itself and secure " results" in human life. 
Productive individuality can thus become a true edu- 
cational motto, and real schooling becomes a relation 
between souls. ("Reason," as a substantive term, 
has perhaps disappeared in the nomenclature of our 
biological era ; but, does it not linger significantly in the 
"sound, healthy mind," "rational plan of studies," sci- 
ence versus superstition, and other such touchstones of 
current pedagogics ?) 

4. The empirical aspects of this subjectivism as 
wrought out in his psychology are reserved for the 
following section. 



PHILOSOPHICAL BASIS OF KANT'S THEORY 41 

5. Freedom and Morality are the chief complementary 
determinations of the second Critique^ which are de- 
clared to be the ultimate characteristics of personality, 
however that personality may theoretically be described 
and explained. Freedom is the condition, duty is the 
inescapable demand, and morally approvable conduct is 
the result. This freedom appears in two directions : (a) 
no being outside myself can determine me — absolute 
possibility is given within me ; (6) the individual is not 
left the prey of impulses and inclinations, but the "law" 
— will — gives an elevating mastery over them. Mo- 
rality becomes herein the highest aim of life, and another 
creative ideal is accredited to educational theory. Will 
is the function and duty is the aim which are to be- 
come regtdative in the whole process of education from 
its beginning to its end. Here philosophical theory and 
pedagogical theory link hands in giving experience its 
tendencies towards perfection; and the Lecture-Notes 
are filled with declarations of this final aim of all culture 
and education. (See Sections 5, 11, 12, 16, 18c?, 19, 27, 
29-33, 42, 44, 47-49, 51, 54, 55, 58, 59, 63, 72, 75-84, 
86-88, 91-99, 103, 105, 106, 108. Cf. also Selections 
XL, XL, and XII.) This principle of freedom demands 
of education that it shall erect a specific story of soul 
structure above the wide foundation of nature, impulse, 
instinct, and the acquired mechanisms of man's devel- 
opment. The unique value of this ethical cast to peda- 
gogy is to be found in Kant's constant recognition of 
the antithesis between animal and human nature, be- 
tween instinct and reason, between mechanism and 
freedom, and in his persistent declaration that true edu- 



42 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

cation tends to lead the latter of each pair to triumph 
over the former. This philosophical basis makes possi- 
ble a pedagogy of the will, re-emphasizes individualism, 
and again displays the virtues of subjectivism. 

Mention should, finally, be made of the fact that Kant 
is the great modern example of self -education. He belongs 
Philosophy pre-eminently to the heroology of pedagogy, 
and Life. It is appropriate to mention this, inasmuch 

as philosophy and personality, thought and character, 
are so intimately related. His philosophy and his peda- 
gogy found their first application and continuous practice 
in his own life. From an obscure origin, he brought 
himself to the foremost place in modern culture. By 
control he extended the precarious strength of a weakly 
body to fourscore years. His health was a matter of 
will. By his punctuality, precision, and personal inde- 
pendence, he organized his own life on the lines of ethi- 
cal freedom. By his firm adherence to his vocation, — 
a seeker after truth, — personal pedagogics became an 
exemplary life.^ 

That Kant himself regarded philosophy as having a 
basic relation to the practical pursuits of life, among 
which education is to be included, may be gathered from 
the following passage : 

'' All technical-practical rules (that is, those of art and 
of skill in general, or also of prudence, as the skill of 
having influence upon men and their wills), in so far as 



^ We may note here the absence of any marked contribution to 
his own educational theory derived from the third Critique^ a 
point to receive mention later. 



PHILOSOPHICAL BASIS OF KANT'S THEORY 43 

their principles rest upon concepts, must be counted 
only as corollaries of theoretical philosophy. For they 
concern only the possibility of things according to nature 
concepts, to which not only the means, which are to be 
found in nature, but even the will itself (as the faculty 
of desire, consequently, as a natural faculty) belongs, so 
far as it can be determined by impulses of nature in 
accordance with those rules. Yet those same practical 
rules are not to be called laws (such as physical), but 
only precepts ; because the will comes not only under 
the concept of nature, but also under the concept of 
freedom, in reference to which its principles are called 
laws ; and it alone comprises, with its implications, the 
second part of philosophy, — namely, the practical part."^ 

^ Critique of Judgment. — Hartenstein, v. p. 178. 



KANT'S PSYCHOLOGY AND HIS EDUCA- 
TIONAL THEORY 

Every teacher trained in a normal school at the be- 
ginning of the twentieth century is apt to grow into an 
unquestioned acceptance of the " axiom" : 
and^EduS ^Y profcssiou is bascd, in its scientific as- 
tion : a Mod- pects, upou psvchologv ; if I cducate, I must 

ern Idea. 

first have a knowledge of the individual whose 
formation I am to direct. It is not easy for him to re- 
member that there was a time when this axiom was a 
new and a theoretical doctrine ; and for this forgetfulness 
the history of education is responsible. That this time 
was comparatively recent can be seen from the fact that 
Kant's generation saw only the dawning twilight of this 
belief of modern pedagogy. Its distinct beginnings may 
be traced as far back as Comenius ; but it was Herbart 
who broke away the mists which ushered in our noon- 
day sun. In attempting to appreciate the relative amount 
of reference to psychology in his educational theory, we 
should give Kant the benefit of the state of psychology 
at his time, and not insist that our psychology shall de- 
termine the scope of the historical perspective. 

Kant found psychology in the doctrinaire, classificatory 
stage. The former feature he submitted to a most 
searching and negative criticism and a final rejection. 
The latter trait he gradually extended, and, setting the 
seal of his authority upon it, made it the acceptable mode 

44 



KANT'S PSYCHOLOGY AND EDUCATIONAL THEORY 45 

of approaching the problems of the science for a century 
or more. At the time of the discovery of America by 
Columbus, and the spreading of the spirit 
of free inquiry, men began to record their psychology be- 
psychological observations. These were usu- °^^ ^^^^' 

ally grouped under the term "anthropology." Soon 
after books appeared bearing the title "anthropology, 
or psychology." These observations made upon the 
soul of man grew from age to age, and were thickened 
with strong infusions of the scholastic dogma about 
the soul. Under the schematizing intellect of Christian 
Wolff, this inchoate mass of material was divided into 
two branches, Psychologia Empirica (1732) and Psy- 
chologia Rationalis (1734), and by him more or less 
thoroughly systematized. The latter division of psy- 
chology sought to derive as much knowledge about the 
nature, being, and destiuy of the soul as might be pos- 
sible through the processes of reasoning. The former 
division was the repository of the characteristic facts of 
mind, to be derived from experience, and which were 
explained in terms of "faculties," which the soul was 
believed to possess, such as perception, memory, under- 
standing, etc. In the history of psychology, this step 
taken by Wolff stands next in importance to the founding 
of the science by Aristotle. It also brought forth sig- 
nificant fruit in the labors of Kant himself, a presenta- 
tion of the details of which we have attempted else- 
where.^ The inspiration of this suggestive division 

^ In my Study of Kanfs Psychology luith Reference to the Critical 
Philowphy. Monograph Supplement No. 4. The Psychological 



46 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

resided in the questions, whether an independent science 
of mind is possible, and how closely that science is 
related to metaphysics. The Leibnitzo-Wolffian phi- 
losophy was dominant in the German universities during 
Kant's student days. It answered both questions affirma- 
tively. As Kant reached his maturity in philosophical 
reflection, he rejected this affirmative position. 

The most important detail in the classificatory trait 
of the empirical psychology of the days of the younger 
Kant is, perhaps, its possession of the two rubrics under 
which all the data of mental experience were placed. 
These rubrics, Avhile always two, were variously desig- 
nated: such as, "the intellectual powers" and "the 
active powers" of the mind, "understanding" and "ap- 
petition" or " desire," etc. Such facts as those of per- 
ception, or memory, or judgment were assigned to the 
first group ; and those of feeling, sentiment, desire, 
effort, motive, will, etc., to the second group. Thus 
Kant himself writes in 1763, "the properties of a mind 
are understanding and will." ^ These rubrics, however, 
served a wider and deeper purpose. By an appeal to 
these "faculties," the psychologist thought himself to be 
dealing with explanatoi^y necessities. Mind behaviors 
were to be made intelligible by pointing out these facul- 
ties as mental forces, which projected themselves spe- 
cifically into the performances which might be observed. 
Kant at first continued to accept this growing tradition 

Review, 1897. New York, The Macmillan Company, pp. 36-47, 
147-151. 

^ Hartenstein, ii. p. 131. 



KANT'S PSYCHOLOGY AND EDUCATIONAL THEORY 47 

of psychological explanation. When, however, he had 
gotten well into his '' sceptical" period, and later 
brought himself face to face with his great problem of 
the nature of human knowledge, we fmd him abandon- 
ing the old, iron-clad, bipartite division of the facul- 
ties. 

The next year (1764) Kant detected a marked change 
in the scientific atmosphere, and also approved of it in 
the following words : "In the present day Feeling first 
we have, for the first time, bearun to see recognized as a 

' ' ^ Distinct Men- 

that the faculty of representing truth is cog- tai Faculty. 
nition, but the faculty of experiencing the good is feel- 
ing, and also that these two faculties must not be 
exchanged one with the other." ^ Eight years later he 
writes to Marcus Herz of this psychological discovery by 
a deeper analysis of the " active powers," in which the 
feelings had been incorporated heretofore, and of the 
fundamental differentiation between knowledge and 
feeling. This change in the division of the faculties of 
the mind was, perhaps, most clearly and substantially 
expressed in the essays of Sulzer in 1751 ff. (Miscel- 
laneous Writings)^ the Letters on Sensation (1755), and 
the Morning Hours (1785) of Moses Mendelssohn, the 
grandfather of the great musician, and in the Philosophi- 
cal Investigations of Human Nature and its Development 
(1777) of Tetens. Of the latter book Kant was very 
fond, and it was often seen lying open on his table. All 
of these psychological writers persisted in pointing out 
the claims of " feeling" to a distinct recognition as a 

1 Hartenstein, ii. pp. 307, 308. 



48 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

basal power of mind, and gave it an application in their 
art theories. 

Kant's acceptance of this new division grew apace 
with the development of his system of Critical Philoso- 
The Mental phy. Indeed, the main outlines of that 
fh^e criSri'''^ system are to be found in this new psycho- 
Phiiosophy. logical creed, which he fully set forth in 
1790 in the Introduction to the third and crowning 
Critique of the system.^ The first Critique explored the 
philosophical values of the faculty of cognition. The 
second Critique was addressed to the a priori nature of 
the faculty of will. And the third Critique attempted to 
effect a union between the first and the second by an 
examination of the faculty of the feeling of pleasure and 
pain. The following table, arranged by Kant,^ sets 
forth these relations between a psychological analysis of 
the higher faculties, the philosophical or transcendental 
principles, and the fields of experience to which they 
are applied respectively. 



Mental Powers. 


Higher Faculties 
of Knowledge. 


A priori Principles. 


Products. 


Knowledge. 
Pleasure and Pain. 

Action. 


Understanding. 
Judgment. 

Reason. 


Conformity to Laws. 

Conformity to Pur- 
pose. 

Obligation. 


Nature. 
Art. 

Morals. 



^See A Study of KanVs Psychology, etc., pp. 63-74. 
' Hartenstein, v. p. 204. 



KANT'S PSYCHOLOGY AND EDUCATIONAL THEORY 49 

The adjective "higher" in the second column of this 
table is most significant in this connection. Kant per- 
sistently discredited psychology, denying that it had any 
scientific value and that it could ever acquire any. In 
1781 he abandoned the doctrinaire, rational psychology 
of his generation, having submitted it, as he thought, to 
an absolutely destructive criticism in the Transcendental 
Dialectic of the first Critique. The adjective "higher" 
readily points out that he introduced his own "ra- 
tional" psychology in order to make the field of criti- 
cism distinct. 

Empirical psychology fared somewhat differently in 
his hands. In 1765 it was regarded as the "peculiarly 
metaphysical empirical science of man," and ^ ^ , 

r J IT Psychology as 

always was a part of his lectures on meta- a science dis- 
physics until he began, in 1773-1774, to p*'^^"^' 

lecture on anthropology. Four years later he gave less 
attention to the former science, because he was giving 
more to the latter, which grew up out of his lectures on 
physical, political, and moral geography, and thereby he 
became the first in Germany to raise anthropology to the 
rank of an academic subject. Psychology became for 
him more and more an affair of " mere opinion." It 
can never become a natural science, because mathe- 
matics cannot be applied to it : its phenomena are given 
in the single dimension of time. It must forever remain 
nothing more or less than an "historical," "natural de- 
scription" of the inner sense. Kant thus threw his great 
interest into the empirical study of men (rather than of the 
individual man) for the sake of a working anthropology. 
His work on this subject was not published until 1798. 



50 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

Psychology became a dubious term with him, and the 
critical caution already stated should not be forgotten. 

If psychology became the rejected child in Kant's 
family of the sciences, he nevertheless continued to do 
Kant's Mean- the work of an excellent psychologist, for 
logical Facut which he had unusual analytical ability. 
*^®s- This persistent, but perhaps unconscious, 

reliance upon psychological insight appears in his recur- 
rent appeal to the nature of human mental faculties. 
What he meant in general by these faculties can briefly 
be set forth as follows : " ' Cognition is the faculty of 
the mind for determining the existence and changes of 
objects.' It is a unique faculty, whose activity consists 
in carrying on the mechanism of representations, a 
mechanism into which enter both a receptivity and a 
spontaneity. . . . ' The capacity of having pleasure or 
pain with a representation is called feeling, because both 
contain merely the subjective relations to our ideas, but 
no reference whatsoever to an object of possible knowl- 
edge (not even a knowledge of our own state).' Cona- 
tion is variously represented, yet all expressions may 
agree in these : now it is will in its highest critical mean- 
ing ; ' will can be defined as the faculty of purposes, 
since they are always the motives of the active powers 
according to principles ;' then it is the empirical activity 
of desire, as ' the faculty of being, through its represen- 
tations, the cause of the objects of these representations.* 
What sort of passivities and activities is included under 
each is most briefly and graphically seen in diagrams." ^ 

1 Adapted from A Study of KanV s Psychology, etc., pp. 206-208. 



Cognition. 







External. < 


"Orn 




Sense (given). 




, "Vit 






^ Internal. ''Interr 






froi 


Lower. 






' Copyii 






Reproductive. 


Imitai 
Previa] 




Imagination 

(produced). ^ 




Symb^jj 






r (Nevei 


1 




Productive. ^^J 
[ Tim: 




Understanding. < 


A priori sensuous forms. 
Twelve Categories. j 
Four Principles. 
Three Ideals. 
^ Apperception. 

Determinative, — ^.judgmeii 


Higher. 


Judgment. 


f JEsthe] 
Reflective. } 

[ Teleolj 

Empirical use,— ordinary. 




Reason. 


Speculative use, — three i 






" Critical" use, — i 


he faci 



f Objective. | ^0^^'^^; 

ic." I 

[ Hearing. 
[ Subjective. \ Taste. 

( Smell. 

General ''bodily" feelings, heat, cold, etc. 

sense," or consciousness of self,— to be distinguished from the feelings and 
pperception. 

' Fantasy (invol- 
untary). 

,, / , f Mechanical. 

Memory (volun-i^^^^i^^^ 

. ^^^y>- ( Judicious, 

n. 

creative," but, for cognitions, always depending on sensations.) 

I Constructing intuitions in space. Associating intuitions in time. Relating 
I power. ° 



experience, or cognition. 

{Beauty, 
o , ,. .. ( Mathematical. 

Sublimity. I Dynamical, 
al. 

7,ogism. 
Ij f Soul. 

\ World. 

(God. 
I )f the moral law, Categorical Imperative. 



KANT'S PSYCHOLOGY AND EDUCATIONAL THEORY 51 
' Cognition. 



Mind. 



Feeling. 



Appetition 
and Will. 



Lower, — receptive, intuitive 

(belong to psychology). 
Higher, — (causally) spontaneous, discur- 
sive (belong to logic). 



Lower, — mechanically empirical. 
Higher, — rationally free : aesthetical, ethi- 
cal, etc. 



1" 



Lower, — the physical motivations of man. 
igher, — only ethical (according to the 
disclosures of Criticism). 



The " lower'' aspects of each faculty group are empir- 
ical, involuntary, and against the will ; the " higher" are 
rational, voluntary, and under "free" will. (See folder 
between pages 50 and 51.) 



Feeling. 



Pleas- 
ure. 



Pain 



Sensuous. 



• { 



1. Agreeable 
s e n s a- 
tions, as 



Intellectual. < 



r Tedium. 
Contentment 
(dependent 
upon the 
i m a g i n a- 
tion). 



2. ^ Taste: f Beauty, 
feelings < Sublimity, 
of [ Morality. 

3. J Dependent upon con- 

cepts (3 and 4 are 
not specifically 
treated by Kant). 

4. Dependent upon ideas. 



Sensuous, etc. 
Intellectual, etc. 



52 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 



' Empirical. 



Appetition 
and Will. 



Rational. 



' Desire. 



Emotion. 



^ Passion. 



Sthenic (strong). 

Asthenic 

(weak). 

f Freedom. 
Natural : ) 

love of I The Sexes. 

{Ambition. 
Imperious- 
ness. 
Covetousness. 



This is the voluntary, ethical will, 
usually called "reason" in the 
severer ''critical" sense, and is 
separated from all the empirical 
forms of motor consciousness. 
This is the faculty analyzed in the 
second Critique. 



These schemes set forth, without great multiplicity of 
detail, Kant's general analytical treatment of the specific 
types of conscious processes. As in his pedagogy, so 
in his systematic philosophy and his anthropology, he 
has a constant fondness for division and subdivisions ad 
infinitum. 

How much of this psychology crept over into his edu- 
cational theory? The reader of the Lecture-Notes on 
Limited In- Pedagogy will doubtless be struck by the 
fluence of his apparent absence of any great direct in- 

Psychologyon ^^ *' ° 

his Educa- flueuce of the former upon the latter. The 
tionai Theory. JJ^J^^^^ nature which supplies the recurrent 
theme of pedagogical idealism in the Introduction (Sec- 
tions 1-30) is the human nature of broad anthropo- 
logical generalizations rather than that psychological in- 
dividualism which is open to introspective analysis. The 



KANT'S PSYCHOLOGY AND EDUCATIONAL THEORY 53 

perfection of man, however, which sets the goal of edu- 
cational efforts, he finds in the inner life, and not in 
any outer circumstances of Hfe. The problems of mental 
culture, chiefly in the sense of intellectual training, are 
taken up specifically, but not until the forty-seventh sec- 
tion, or, more particularly, the fifty-eighth. The training 
of the non-mechanical faculties, so to speak, is not taken 
up until the sixty-third section, and then only fourteen 
sections present the treatment offered. Of these a little 
more than one-half are concerned with the rules neces- 
sary for the training, not of all psychological faculties, 
but only of the cognitive. The most striking feature 
in the attitude maintained is the persistent consideration 
of these faculties as standing in a hierarchy — one leads 
up to another, and so on. In its fundamental persua- 
sion, no view is more conducive to the insight of the need 
of training and of the possibility of establishing the 
formula for the work of education. Here we have the 
genetic spirit^ if not a full apprehension of the genetic 
method, in the possession of which we of to-day are 
educationally rich. 

Within the limited circle of the range of psychological 
theory in his pedagogy, and also in many of the selec- 
tions belonging to this theme, Kant never wearies of 
bringing out over and over again the essential differences 
between memory and understanding, whether in science 
or in education. This is indicative of the fact that no 
mechanical view of the office of instruction and the func- 
tion of the school was acceptable to him. His conclu- 
sion is a psychological bulwark, which has not always 
been regarded in the educational theory and practice 



54 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

of the century intervening between his day and ours. 
In 1775, near the period when he perforce began to give 
his official attention to pedagogy, we have a very sug- 
gestive instance of this twofold criticism of mechanical 
retention of ideas and approval of the high claims of 
active thinking. In speaking of the classification of ani- 
mals, in his discussion on the various races of men, he 
names two types, that of the school and that of nature. 
The former "provides a school system for the memory'' 
and the latter "a nature system for the understanding." 
" The first aims to bring creatures under titles and the 
latter brings them under laws." ^ 

It is superficially fair to Kant's educational theory to 
say that its psychology is subordinated to his ethics, 
„. , and that the mere training of faculty is but 

His Theory a o J 

Pedagogy of an episode in his great conception of edu- 
thewiii. cation. On the other hand, it is just as 

much truer, as the view is profounder, that the relative 
absence of any marked influence from his psychology 
upon his theory, aside from the rules laid down for the 
lower and the higher faculties, has in part its expla- 
nation, and in part its justification, in the fact that 
his educational theory is pre-eminently a pedagogy of the 
will. It was this drift of his thought, perchance, which 
saved him from the snare of a mere " pedagogical 
psychology," that more modern invention which too 
often thinks to do the Avork of a careful systematic 
pedagogy. A count of the sections will reveal that 
" will" is the one mental process most frequently 

^ Hartenstein, ii. p. 435. 



KANT'S PSYCHOLOGY AND EDUCATIONAL THEORY 55 

named. In his demand for a union of knowledge and 
power (Section 70), and in his rule of learning by doing 
(Section 75), this pedagogy of will receives further vin- 
dication and application. And, finally, in moral educa- 
tion, it is will, and not mere faculty training, which 
coordinates all the requirements and opportunities of 
securing the destiny of man in the moral behavior of 
the child. That this will pedagogy did not shield Kant 
from the dogma of formal training is apparent from 
Section 72, and it is often the will itself that is to be 
approached through the rules derivable from that dogma. 
The point not to be lost sight of is his genial entertain- 
ment of the view that education, to be effective, is a 
doing, an effort, an activity, into which our will must 
pour itself. The supreme expression of this aspect of 
human nature, both within and without the bounds of 
education, is freedom in every application to knowledge 
and life of which it at all admits. In this sense, then, 
Kant's psychology is an essential part of his educational 
theory. 



KANT'S EVOLUTIONAL AND EDUCA- 
TIONAL THEORIES 

It would be a gross injustice to our author to let it be 
understood that he endeavored to conceive of education 
Kant's Educa- ^^^ ^^ ^^^^ rules for the conduct of it solely 
tionai Theory from the staud-Doints of a transcendental 

T)OSSPSSPS Jl 

Threefold philosophy and of a psychology which rep- 
Fouudation. rgseuted a new advance upon the then 
current views of the soul. No less would it be unfair 
to ourselves as students of his educational ideas to rob 
our appreciation of them by stopping with the analy- 
ses of the two preceding sections. Kant becomes a 
fully accredited educational theorist by his admission of 
the advantages of the conception and the postulate of 
evolution into his discussion of the problem of the 
education of man. It is not a little surprising to find 
that he gave a threefold foundation to that all too brief 
discussion : (a) philosophical, (6) psychological, (c) evo- 
lutional. Thus we find him to be more and more 
allied to the reigning modern point of view. It is the 
establishment of this tripod of his educational philos- 
ophy which, perhaps, entitles him to be regarded as 
the author of an educational system rather than anything 
that may be worked out on the basis of the contents 
of the Lecture- Notes, 
56 



EVOLUTIONAL AND EDUCATIONAL THEORIES 57 

In its naturalistic, gi^cm-scientific aspects, his peda- 
gogy previsions the much-applied current theory of de- 
velopment, — in gross, not in refined details, ^^g Ti^g^ry a 
to be sure. To Kant, education essentially synthesis of 

r> 1 1 Evolution and 

means a specific order of development. Etwcai weai- 
A.nd, to strengthen this opinion, one finds ^^^' 

this generic view hovering over the whole of the Intro- 
duction to the Lecture-Notes, forming a background for 
his discussion of the education of the individual. In its 
conception of the goal of education, as the rationalizing 
and freeing of man, who somehow stands in the evolu- 
tional series as a natural object, Kanfs educational 
theory literally becomes a synthesis of the evolutionism of 
anthropological science and the ethical idealism of philosophy. 
He has long since been an admitted harmonizer of the 
speculative tendencies of his age, and we now find this 
intellectual temper displaying itself again in his peda- 
gogical lectures. We should not, however, think it 
strange if we find Kant permitting these three bases of 
education to stand side by side without undertaking to 
render them mutually consistent. There is many a better- 
informed modern who displays even greater complacency 
than Kant in this matter. 

Kant's relation to the theory of evolution is rather 
unique. To many it may seem a logical impossibility 
for him to have had even an interest in the ^^^^'a coutri- 
theory. Here, again, the obscuration of his butiontothe 

. 1 . 1 . ^ Formation of 

suggestions to the particular sciences, and the Theory of 
their consequent neglect by his overtower- Evolution, 
ing services to speculative interests, are increasingly pa- 
thetic. There is abundant evidence, however, that 



68 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

Kant entertained the theory, and that he brought educa- 
tion to count with it. Indeed, he was the projector of 
that hypothesis of physical evolution, the nebular hy- 
pothesis, which to-day underlies the science of astron- 
omy, and which usually goes by the name of Laplace, 
who gave it a formulation four decades later than 
Kant's work of 1755, and independently thereof. He 
entertained the epigenetic theory of development which 
was propounded by C. F. Wolff in 1759, and should 
not be held responsible for any supposed gap between 
that view and those views which may now be more 
acceptable on the basis of the very modern science of 
embryology. If this were the place to enter on such a 
discussion, one might well question whether Kant's 
view of human development does not stand nearer the 
truth than the more refined and elaborate modern theo- 
ries. The great and main point is this : Kant stood in 
the front rank of those who saw, and insisted upon, the 
need of regarding the universe as in a state of change 
and becoming, which follows a law of progress. This 
conception he articulated more or less clearly through 
the range of the physical and anthropological sciences 
as then understood, gave it an application in his educa- 
tional theory, and a final interpretation in the third 
Critique. 

The evidences and the scope of his concept of evolu- 
His Idea of tiou may further be described in terms of the 
Evolution and yiews expressed by him at various times. 

of its Applica- ^ '' 

tions. In 1764 Kant shared in the public interest 

in the "wild man" and his child companion of eight 
years of age, who appeared from the woods at Konigs- 



EVOLUTIONAL AND EDUCATIONAL THEORIES 59 

berg} His chief interest, however, was centred upon 
the boy, who had grown up in the woods, and whom 
he describes as cheerfully defying the weather, pos- 
sessing a face which showed incomparable frankness 
and a marked absence of foolish embarrassment. He 
regarded this embarrassment in finer education as the 
effect of servitude and forced respect. Aside from the 
tricks at money-getting, the boy seemed to Kant to be 
a complete subject for the experimental moralist, who 
ought to wish for just such a subject, and who thus 
would have an honest opportunity to test the proposi- 
tions and the beautiful chimeras of Rousseau before 
rejecting them. Here " child-study" was to be a touch- 
stone of truth long before it became the waking dream 
of the modern scientist. 

In reviewing Moscati's work on the differences be- 
tween the structure of animals and man, in 1771, Kant 
went further in his conception of how the individual 
man must be connected in evolutionary thought with 
the race, and be compared with lower forms of animal 
life.^ Man's upright position and locomotion are unnat- 
ural, being acquired. Many diseases from which four- 
footed animals are free may be traced to this condition 
of posture, which induces special deleterious strains upon 
various portions of man's structure. The first care of 
nature is to preserve man as an animal, and also his 
species. A '' seed of reason" has been laid in man by 
nature, which predisposes him to take on social func- 

^ Hartenstein, ii. p. 209. 
» Ibid., pp. 429-43L 



60 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

tions. Thus he assumes the two-footed position, and 
lifts himself above his lowly neighbors, a bipedal loco- 
motion being best adapted for social intercourse. 

Four years later, as we stand at the threshold of his 
pedagogical epoch, he elaborates his idea of races in 
His Conception physical geography/ While his classifica- 
ofRace. tious have long since been set aside, the 

content of his idea still lingers in our modern anthro- 
pology. "Race" means the stem and its productivity; 
and racial growth he traced, however imperfectly, as 
dependent upon light, climate, soil, foods. Nearly a 
decade later the race idea, which had grown in its integ- 
rity and served him as the background of comparison, 
reappeared in his efforts to set forth the ethical con- 
ditions of the individual in his racial and historical rela- 
tions to organized civic life. The two essays of interest 
here are Idea of a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan 
Point of View (1784), and The Probable Beginnings of 
Human History (1786). Mankind is not a mere aggre- 
gation ; it has an organic unity. "Nature" expresses 
the primitive condition of development, which is per- 
petuated in the instincts and other mechanisms. Man 
must not remain in this raw state, but he must develop, 
progressing in the direction of reason, law, will, free- 
dom, morality. (See foot-notes to Sections 2, 3, 10, 26.) 
Up to his own era, he regarded the race as not having 
yet entered upon the last and highest stage, — namely, the 
stage of ethical reason. Humanity as a whole, how- 
ever, is progressing thitherward. (See Section 19.) It 

^ Hartenstein, ii. p. 435 ff. 



EVOLUTIONAL AND EDUCATIONAL THEORIES 61 

should be observed that his pedagogical idea of evolu- 
tion and the larger meaning he found it to give to edu- 
cation falls within this " race" period of his own mental 
development, if we may so speak. 

Empirical psychology, furthermore, according to Kant's 
conception, approaches very closely the confines which 
the present age is handing over to genetic psychology. 
Although limited to the individual, it treats " of the 
origin of experience, but not of that which lies within 
it." ^ Anthropology, which grew into independent vigor 
under his hands, has the special duty laid upon it of con- 
sidering man " cosmologically," and not singly. Evolu- 
tion is undoubtedly a constituent in these conceptions, to 
the acceptance of which Kant brought himself more and 
more closely. 

And, finally, one can cite the official passages in the 
Critique of Judgment in which the theory of evolution 
finds, not only definite mention, but also 

•' Evolution in 

specific arguments offered in its favor.^ the critical 
Here it is called a '' conjecture" of " a com- ^^^^^^^P^y- 
mon ancestral source" for all the many species of ani- 
mals. Indeed, he carries the evolutional regressus down 
"to the polyp, from this to the moss and lichen, and 
finally to the lowest stage of nature perceptible to us, 
to crude matter, from which and its forces, according to 
mechanical laws, the whole technique of nature appears 
to be derived." ^ 

^ Hartenstein, iv. p. 52. 
^ Section 81, Hartenstein, v. pp. 435-438. 
' See P. Cams, ' * Kant on Evolution, ' ' The Monist, vol. ii. No. 
4, Appendix, pp. 40-43. 



62 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

The conception of nature determined by mechanical 

laws, and thus enlarged by the progressive aspect of its 

great changes, is what underlies the discus- 

appiied^chiefly sious of educatiou in the Lecture-Notes and 

to Educational jj^ somc of the Selections. This view bore 

Theory. 

fruit in another direction also. The moral 
life must be understood as standing out boldly by com- 
parison against this great, universal background of an 
evolving nature. It is education, in fact, which seems 
to be the one type of science to which Kant gave an ap- 
plication of the idea of development as the law of 
nature which previsions the goal of human life. It was 
not applied in the Critiques^ nor in his psychological 
analysis of man in his Anthropology. Here we also find 
some justification for the great emphasis he placed upon 
the individual in his educational theory. There can 
be no education of the race, scarcely in the sesthet- 
ical sense of Schiller, who benefited by this parallel 
scheme. 

In this way Kant's theory practically presents a third 
form of definition of education. Its method is com- 
parative, which is advantageous both to the 

Education , . . j x xi j* r j x* 

redefined in begmumgs and to the endmgs of education. 
Terms of Viewed in the twofold directions, education 

Ethics. 

is to surmount nature, the great mechanism ; 
and, in doing that, and having done that, it must proceed 
to transform the man-animal into a rational and moral 
humanity. The self-development of the race likewise 
offers its suggestions to pedagogy in the introductory 
sections. Kant always seemed to hold that evolution 
is better than revolution in human affairs, excepting 



EVOLUTIONAL AND EDUCATIONAL THEORIES 63 

under some conditions of character. (See Selection X.) 
Human evolution, in its fullest sense, became identified 
with education. These thoughts, which are so germinal 
in the history of philosophical pedagogics, even reach 
an expressive suspicion of the theory of recapitulation, 
wherein the child is supposed to repeat the history 
of the race, even of the whole evolving process in 
organic life, now so vigorously advocated. (See Sec- 
tion 12.) 

The connection between his philosophical account of 
man's action and his educational theory is further ex- 
tended and illumined by the demand which both nature 
and ethics make upon inan. By these he is called to 
undertake the education of humanity, not so much in 
himself, but rather in the next generation, his offspring. 
This is the demand of evolution and of progress. Kant's 
great forte in his evolutionary hints is upon their moral 
side. For him the supreme law of the universe is evo- 
lution, — not in the production of imperfect living organ- 
isms, but towards the good. And the only good for 
humanity is progress within man. 

Having reached this point, we can see how, as a 
matter of fact, the tripod of educational foundation is 
firmly knit together in that subjectivism which is made 
" objective" in the work of education and moral prog- 
ress. Although often sceptic both as to the ethical 
quality of human nature and as to the fact of human 
progress, Kant did hold fast to the possible solution of 
the moral and the pedagogical problem of the race. 
And no nobler conception than his of the dignity of 
education has since been set forth in the light of both 



64 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

science and human history, and, indeed, is scarce con- 
ceivable. 

Having traced the history and the foundations of 
Kant's educational theory, we may now turn to a more 
detailed consideration of what that theory comprised. 



KANT'S CONCEPTION OF EDUCATION 

It has been a mooted question as to whether Kant can 
be credited with having wrought out a systematic notion 
of education, and especiahy whether the re- 

' ^ -^ Is Kant's Peda- 

mains of his lectures can be organized into gogy system- 
orderly discussions. Vogt, Paulsen, Lind- ^*^°' 
ner, Temming, and most other writers declare in the 
negative, while Burger probably stands alone in his sug- 
gestion that Kant did entertain an idea of education 
which had organizing power, but was not carried out to 
that length by him. One may agree with the negative 
view as based on a reading of his discussions, which do 
not touch upon all matters concerned in the practice of 
the schools, without thereby doing violence to a convic- 
tion which believes Kant to have had a generic concep- 
tion of education, expressed with some clearness, and 
serving as the point of orientation in more than one 
way. 

The foundation of his pedagogical views is to be found 
in his idea of man and of his destiny, as just sketched 
at some length. These represent the external goal, as it 
were, in terms of which one can mark the amount of 
advance made in any practice of education. The inner 
process is dynamic. No writer has more clearly set 
forth a pedagogy of effort. This spirit expressed itself 
in the conception of will in psychology, the factor of 
activity in philosophy, and the free development in evo- 

5 65 



66 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

lution. Duproix is therefore right in stating that, "for 
Kant, education is a constant effort, a voluntary ascension, 
a progressive evolution towards an ideal which should 
be more fully known and more elevated." ^ 

Standing alone, this view would have little value, 
being extremely schematic, and thus capable of appro- 
His Chief Peda- priatiou by almost any detailed plan of 
gogicai Terms, training. Fortunately, however, Kant gave 
definite elaboration to it. It did not stand before him 
as a thin, simple conception, but as extremely rich and 
complex. The first mark of his differentiation of it can 
be found in his use of the terms Bildung, Kultur, and 
Erziehung^ all referring to the general process which 
becomes thus broken up. (See foot-note 2, page 101.) 
The chief evidence, however, is to be found in the nota- 
ble fact that, when speaking in general of pedagogy and 
the empirical development of man, Kant uses the follow- 
ing five terms : Notwendigheit^ Moglichkeit, Wert^ Frin- 
cipien^ and Kunst He does not stop anywhere to distin- 
guish specifically and literally between the necessity^ the 
possibility^ the value^ the principles^ and the art of educa- 
tion. But the rules and recommendations given upon 
physical, mental, and moral training in the Treatise will 
be found to be more or less in accord with these five 
aspects which, with a possible sixth, exhaust the concep- 
tion of education presented in the Introduction. 

The Necessity of Education. — Kant first sets forth the 
view that education is not optional, but compulsory. It 
is not a social luxury, but a basic national and racial 

^ Kant et Fichte et le prohllme de V Education, p. 128. 



KANT'S CONCEPTION OF EDUCATION 67 

need. Education must supply to man the lack of in- 
stincts in him, which are so fortunately present in the 
animal. He is " raw" and helpless (Sections 

^ Education a 

1, 2, 6). Nature alone does not educate ; but Necessity for 
man must make his own pedagogical plans ^^^^' 

(14). It is thus that reason appears as the ultimate 
source of authority in human education. Nor is it a 
movement in a circle to add, that it is the essence of 
human nature, — namely, that man is made man by edu- 
cation only, which finally supplies the grounds for this 
necessity. A good world is derived by educational de- 
velopment. From this point of view, Kant is able to jus- 
tify pedagogy as a " natural science," and to relate the 
education of man to his empirical character. Do we not 
here find a happy approximation to that recent view of 
infancy, entertained on the basis of organic evolution, 
which regards it as the provision of nature for the intro- 
duction of formative influences to aid the individual to 
elevate himself above the mechanisms of an animal civil- 
ization? This necessity, according to Kant, also has its 
limits fixed by the age determinations of the child and 
by the orderly sequence which must be followed (7, 18, 
26, 33). This necessity is made absolute, finally, by the 
great gap which exists between the human infant at birth 
and the human will organized into free action under law. 
The Possibility of Education. — The crying need for 
education which human nature manifests, whether 
viewed ab ante from nature or ad post to Education 
the ideal of moral development, is not a de- Possible. 

lusion or a trick. The demand is met by the possibility. 
The ideal is, above all, "truthful." Here, again, Kant's 



68 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

views rest upon an analysis of human nature. Germi- 
nal reason and a quasi-germiusd morality alone make 
the possibility actual. Man has innate capacities. He 
is equipped for perfection (7, 11). Education is a process 
which is exactly adapted to man rather than to animals 
(19). The possibility seems almost to be the divine com- 
mission to man to develop himself. So definite does the 
possibility become that its task is defined in the mathe- 
matical terms of "proportionate" development of the 
capacities. It is also so large that its achievement is not 
for the individual alone, or primarily, but for the entire 
race. So great and so certain is this possibility a pro- 
vision of the natural conditions of society, that Kant, as 
a pedagogue, becomes prophetic, and looks forward to a 
future happier state of humanity as a result of true edu- 
cation (7). This possibility is not only "ideal," but also 
intellectual and practicable. Education being a possi- 
ble process, it gives rise to scientific principles and to a 
distinct art (11, 14). The latter must be reduced to 
rational and directive principles for it to make any prog- 
ress. The possibility of education is thus the actuality 
of a " science" of pedagogy, — a remarkable admission 
and ideal for this great determiner of all sciences. 

The Value of Education. — This has already been play- 
ing upon the surface in the characterization of the two 
precedinar items in his 2-eneral view of what 

Education pos- ^ ^ ^ 

sesses an Ideal education is. Its valuc is relative. It is a 
Value. means to an end. But it is also the only 

means to an absolute end (7, 16). This value is no less in- 
dicated by the fact that education remains up to the pres- 
ent (Kant's) time an undiscovered " ideal" (8). Realism 



KANT'S CONCEPTION OF EDUCATION 69 

can scarce be the foundation of a true pedagogy, or it 
would have been discovered long ago in the history of the 
race. This value is not limited to the individual, for the 
destiny of man is not reached in the individual alone, but 
first and only in the race. To Kant, education means, 
not that simple, limited interaction, shaped by the teacher, 
between the individual child and the world as it is in 
reality. This is the petty, parsimonious pedagogy which 
becomes an inflated normalism, working blindly upon 
the individual. Kant escaped this mechanical concep- 
tion by incorporating it, in a subordinate way, in a vaster 
regard for education. To him, education means, in the 
fullest sense of the term, a progressive interaction be- 
tween the individual child and humanity, as the latter is 
expressed in the ultimate idea of its worth and destiny. 
The chief effects of this interaction are to be traced in 
the growing personality of the child, since the ideal of 
humanity remains the same for both the individual and 
the race, preserving a constant nature throughout the 
civilizing changes of all generations (10, 15, 95a). This 
does not mean a demand for pedagogical uniformity in 
the race. Far from it. For it is a supreme moral ideal- 
ism which is thus introduced into pedagogy. It is at this 
point that his greatest service to education is to be seen. 
It is morality alone which gives meaning to man, and at 
the same time puts an end into educational thought and 
effort. This end is not changeable with the ages in 
which education may successively be carried out, and is 
distinctly opposed to the temporal determinations of 
utility, happiness, or any other immediate, external 
result. The worth of any education, then, at once is 



70 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

measurable in terms of its degree of approximation to 
this unalterable goal. Here, also, it is again seen how 
interchangeable ethics and pedagogy become for Kant 
(cf. Selections II., XL, XIIL). 

The Principles of Education. — Kant's opportunities to 
lecture on education did not waste themselves on mere 
A Science of pedagogical idealizations. These ramblings 
mlndTprirl:'" ^^ ^^^^ rational heart, if one feels like calling 
cipies. them such, while appearing in the fore- 

ground, did not stand alone. He gave them the double 
support of offering a few positive principles, and of 
making the further demand that they be reduced to a 
scientific structure. The necessity and the possibility 
of training man have already presented most of the nat- 
uralistic, anthropological reasons for undertaking edu- 
cation. But, further, education must be reduced to a 
science^ that a succeeding generation may not destroy all 
that its predecessor has done (14). This implies a per- 
manent optimistic belief in the power of an accumula- 
tive science, which grows into an impersonal heritage 
of the race at large, — a spirit which has jflourished with 
every discovery in the nineteenth century. The tribute 
paid to the value of " experts" in education is another 
indication of Kant's belief in the integrity of pedagogical 
science (17).^ Indeed, this belief goes so far as to make 

^ The Critique of Pure Reason, as well as some later writings, 
attempted to set forth clearly just what Kant regarded "science" 
to be, as the complex product of constructive intellect. It would 
carry us too far to detail the structural aspects of science which 
appealed to him in these analyses, and we must be content here 
with these two observations. He does not introduce his technical 



KANT'S CONCEPTION OF EDUCATION 71 

a demand for experimentation, which is not merely 
optional, but necessary in order to acquire the proper 
principles (20 ; cf. Selection III.). The Philanthropinum 
and normal schools seemed to be the hope in which this 
confidence rested, until their limitations became manifest. 
Besides this demand for a science of pedagogy, deter- 
mined on a basis of facts and reason, Kant offers a 
number of positive principles borrowed his Principles 
more or less from physiology, psychology, summarized, 
anthropology, and ethics, as we of to-day would say. 
The child must be educated according to "nature" 
(here following Rousseau). Civilization must underlie 
educational principles. The child must be educated 
under the dominance of the idea of humanity. The 
bodily powers must be cultivated to orderly indepen- 
dence. The mental powers must not be cultivated sepa- 
rately, or formally, but in mutual interdependence. 
Self-doing is the secret of true education, and self-edu- 
cation is its goal. Rules and maxims, not impulses and 
whims, must be the inspiration and guidance of every 
educational move. Age is a determinant in education. 
Conduct and character depend upon the establishment 
of good principles. Such are some of the great view- 
points from which his prescription and proscription of 

conception of science in these Lecture- Notes, but at the same 
time he does declare the nature of a guiding science to be " ra- 
tional" and not "mechanicar' (14) or personally prejudicial 
(16, 17). The literalist, of course, could easily make out that the 
only "science" of pedagogy is that which is derived from the 
principles expressed in the three Critiques, and that the lectures 
are therefore non-scientific. 



72 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

practices in training the infant, youth, and pupil are 
derived. Kant was cautious and shrewd enough to dis- 
tinguish between principle and practice, between a peda- 
gogical generalization and a pedagogical performance. 

The Art of Education. — To the foregoing features in 
Kant's general conception of education we must add a 
Education an fifth, — namely, The Art of Education (11,14, 
^^*- 1 5). He appears among the first to recog- 

nize the practical, artistic nature of education. The 
large scope of education and the extreme complexity of 
its factors and presuppositions involve a mass of ways 
and means. That this is merely a haphazard and 
heterogeneous mass he does not seem to believe. The 
problem is to reduce every practice to principle, to find 
a rational basis for every activity. The school became 
to him, in all its forms, the meeting-place of pedagogical 
idealism and actual achievement in handling human 
nature. This concrete element in his theory extends 
far beyond his lectures on pedagogy ; for it tends to re- 
appear in his technical philosophical writings, especially 
those dealing with practical philosophy. (See Selection 
XL) This rather constant endeavor to get his educa- 
tional creed " applied" adds an unusual support to the 
integrity and the sincerity of the philosophical basis 
upon which that creed rested. 

The Forms of Education. — This is a sixth aspect which 
should be added to the above. Specific mention is not 
Various Forms made of this by Kant, but it is integral in 
of Education, j^jg educational theory, and appears in a 
variety of distinctions and recommendations. There is, 
of course, a constant danger of reading into an author 



KANT'S CONCEPTION OF EDUCATION 73 

meanings which are not detailed in his discussions. In 
such concentrated material as the Notes undoubtedly 
are one can, however, do him no real violence by 
gathering together the various intimations of a distinc- 
tion as to the forms into which education moulds itself, 
and under which its w^ork must be accomplished. This 
distinction extends to a recognition of form in the exter- 
nal and the internal aspects of education : the types of 
schools, governmental versus philanthropic, public versus 
private (17, 22-25); the types of teachers, as parents, 
tutors, teachers (10, 14, 21, 24, 34); the types of edu- 
cation both intellectual and moral, as dependent upon 
age (1, 26 fif., 84, 90) ; and, finally, the types as to meth- 
ods (especially Selection VIII. ). These types were ap- 
proved, or condemned, from his stand-point of requiring 
education to be a full and free development of the indi- 
vidual man. 

The Division of Educational Activities. 

The difficulties involved in getting Kant's general con- 
ception of education increase as we approach the con- 
tents of the Lecture-Notes and attempt to TheVaiueof 
systematize his views definitely expressed. Rink's Edition. 
We suddenly discover that the six points just inven- 
toried do not appear in the explicit classifications which 
he makes of the factors, or activities, he regards as com- 
prising education. Again, our difficulties increase as we 
observe that neither the half-dozen elements in his con- 
ception nor his analyses of education into its factors 
serve him in the division of topics discussed in these 
Notes. This external, or topical, division cannot be 



74 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

traced back beyond Rink's editing. Rink arranged the 
first part, here called "Introduction" (Sections 1-30), 
without any superscription. The second part, or the 
remainder (Sections 31-113), was called " The Treatise." 
This, in turn, was divided into two parts, — " On Physical 
Education" (Sections 34-90), and " On Practical Educa- 
tion" (Sections 91-113).^ He also adopted the method 
of placing rules between certain paragraphs as a mode 
of still finer division of the material which came to his 
hand. 

The question of adjusting these numerous divisions 
of the external and the internal educational factors has 
exercised the many editors and expositors of Kant's 
views without the end of the debate being clearly in 
sight. Schubert, Hartenstein, Willmann, Vogt, Frohlich 
and Korner, Hollenbach, Strlimpell, Richter, Kipping, 
Vogel, Deinhardt, Light, and others have dealt more or 
less — usually less — with this issue, scarcely any two 
arriving at the same conclusion. The question of the 
external division, however, is subordinate to that of the 
division of educational activities. It is upon the latter that 
all conclusions one adopts as to the former must rest. 

Kant had a wonderful passion for primness, for making 
division upon division when treating of ideas and theo- 
retical interpretations of facts. His more sys- 

Kant's ^ -^ 

Passion for tematic trcatiscs on philosophy are striking 
Over-Ana ysis. ^^ accouut of the almost indefinite heaping 
of distinction upon distinction. This analytic refinement 

^ Burger, Ueber die Oliederung der Pddagogik Kants, Jena, 
1889, p. 7. 



KANT'S CONCEPTION OF EDUCATION 75 

was the mental ability which enabled him to midertake 
the achievement which he accomplished. This predilec- 
tion reached, without doubt, its highest expression in his 
lectures on pedagogy, as may be gathered from the frag- 
mentary form in which they have been preserved. In 
no less than a dozen sections there are given repeated 
divisions of those activities involved in education, and 
as many groupings of the particular doctrines which 
constitute the body of his views on this subject. We 
here, also, secure an insight into his method of separa- 
tion and exclusion w^hich enabled him to make so much 
of his work lastingly effective for the culture of his age. 
Indeed, as has been suggested, perhaps more of his in- 
dividuality appears in this than in any other of his 
writings. 

The following list presents the divisions of education 
found in the various sections : 

Types of 

1. Care, discipline, instruction, and culture Educational 
(with the age determinant broadly outlined). Activities. 
4. Training = negative ; instruction = positive. 
6. Care, training, instruction. 

18. Discipline, cultivation, civilization, and moraliza- 
tion (the chief classification in the Introduction). 

19. Training, teaching, thinking, acting, and a repeti- 
tion of the four activities named in 18. 

21. Care, discipline, culture (as instruction, direction). 

22. Public and private education. 

27. Obedience, freedom (the two epochs in schooling). 

31. Physical, practical education. 

32. Practical includes scholastic, pragmatic, moral 
ends. 



76 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

*'• I Physical culture ,f j negatively = discipline. 

^„ ( the mind includes ) ... i ^, 

58. ^ I positively = culture. 

( Physical culture = cultivation = nature. 

I Practical culture = moralization = freedom. 

scholastic = work. 
^ Physical = passive = 
practice and discipline. 
Moral = active = duty 
and maxims. 



72. < 



1. General culture 
of the faculties. 



2. Particular culture f Lower faculties. 
:ies. I 



of the faculties. I Higher faculties. 

Why does Kant go on making new and ever newer 
divisions of the content and of the aims of education? 
May these repeated divisions represent his annually suc- 
cessive approaches to the problem of education ? Why 
does not the table of the twelve categories — the laws of 
science and nature — appear in these divisions? To 
these, and to many similar questions, it must simply be 
answered : we do not know. The almost inexhaustible 
complexity of education is strongly declared in these 
repeated analyses. We may choose to adopt one sec- 
tion or another as characteristically Kantian, and thus 
proceed to adapt all the others to the one selected. It 
is no doubt possible to bring all into agreement with 
Sections 18, 31, 72. 

But the most important point to be observed is this : 
in these repeated divisions, Kant did not lose sight of the 
ethico-psycho-physical solidarity of the individual, and 
thus of the race. From beginning to conclusion, he 



KANT'S CONCEPTION OF EDUCATION 77 

does not forget that every phase of educational effort 
must proceed upon a recognition of the basis which 
natural and mechanical processes univer- 

n < 1 M • 1-1 1 • 1 The Solidarity 

sally present, be it m physical, psychical, of the 

cultural, or moral education, in the constant individual and 

of the Race. 

endeavor to hand the child over to a free, 
rational, individual independence. A second point of 
importance is the character of the Introduction, which, 
in giving some general reflections upon the nature of 
education, has an original cast, and approximates a logical 
unity. Burger is nearer the truth than most other in- 
terpreters in saying that it is truly Kantian in allowing 
the concepts to arise slowly before one's eyes, and in 
tending to give a more detailed treatment of each special 
type of educational activity before all are brought to- 
gether into a systematic conception.^ And, finally, the 
exhaustive character of his analyses is attested by the 
fact, that the pedagogy of the nineteenth century has 
not contributed a single important addition to the ele- 
ments in the scheme here projected. It may have 
changed the rubrics in its pedagogy, from "physical" 
and "practical" to such as "physical," "intellectual," 
"moral," "social," "religious;" but these do not outstep 
the former's all-inclusiveness ; for within Kant's concep- 
tion we find the differentice of age, sex, social condition, 
civic condition, and life itself co-operating directly with 
the more formal elements which are given an exalted 
position in the basal classifications. The topical and 

^ Burger, Ueber die Gliederung der Pddagogik Kants, Jena, 

1889, p. 7. 



78 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

content divisions will also readily be found to be in ac- 
cordance Avith the philosophical, the psychological, and 
the evolutional bases upon which he rested his insight 
into the character of human education. 

In view of the brevity and compactness of Kant's dis- 
cussions on educational questions, it is not necessary 
here to pass in review the material to be found in the 
translation. Such observations as should be made are 
to be found scattered throughout the foot-notes. But the 
following remarks may be offered in conclusion at this 
point. 

Kant should not be regarded as a pedagogical formalist. 
To him, education was not an empty process. Pedagogy 
Kant not a meant a valuation of the ways and means at 
Formalist. the disposal of the ruler, the parent, the 
teacher, which should be employed in light of the aim 
of education. The pedagogue should be one who, be- 
ginning with the stream of life, carefully watches its 
current, keeping it out of the by-pools and eddies, and 
guiding it onward to the greater and larger oceanic 
life beyond. Thus it is that the same aim is kept upper- 
most whether we have reference to physical develop- 
ment, mental activity, or the formation of character. 
This is the secret of the unity in Kant's theory, albeit 
the rules and precepts which he offers may seem to have 
no wider basis than a desire for a certain form of culture 
limited to the special activity considered under this or 
that topic, as the case may be. 

Kant's regard for the material of education from in- 
fancy to maturity should also lead one to. believe that 
his pedagogical ideals were not vain abstractions sus- 



KANT'S CONCEPTION OF EDUCATION 79 

pended in the air. He did not abstract physical from 
intellectual and moral education. Here he is both the 
ancient Spartan and the scientific modern. ButcWeflya 
In making the first a constituent part of peda- Harmonizer of 
gogy, he antedated our science which shows Modem 

the solidarity of the different parts of the Tendencies, 
human organism. A like vital regard for the educative 
material of the intellect again brings him near to the 
spirit of current educational progress. It is not the 
a priori intellect of the Critique of Pure Reason^ but the 
empirical intelligence which comes in for directive care. 
There is here both matter and form. The former aspect 
leads to the intellectual subjects of study, about which 
it is remarkable he has so little to say, in view of his 
ripe acquaintance with the advances of science in his 
day. At the same time, this need not be surprising, if 
one may be permitted to draw a conclusion from the 
famous passage about the starry heavens above and 
the moral law within. To Kant, both physical and 
mental studies brought the mind to the same attitude. 
The latter lead to method in dealing with those sub- 
jects. In his approval of the Socratic method, and in 
his demand for a unification of knowing and doing, 
there appears a unique recognition of the need that 
the education of the will should penetrate all so-called 
intellectual education. And, finally, education for mo- 
rality is described as deriving its material from the 
riches of human experience and of human reason in its 
ability to make the differentiations necessary for a recog- 
nition of duty and the organization of a firm, intelligent 
will. It is rather striking, however, that the educative 



80 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

material which pertains to the body and to the will is 
presented more fully than that which is to be coordi- 
nated with intellectual development. "The problem 
of the curriculum" had not arisen in his day, and the 
inflated hope of educational " evaluations" had not yet 
begun to distress the pedagogue. 



THE LIMITATIONS OF KANT'S EDUCA- 
TIONAL THEORY 

In expounding Kant's views on the nature of educa- 
tion, its presuppositions and its great purposes, and in 
outlining the contributions his philosophy 
made to the growth of educational theory not a Perfected 
in the nineteenth century, we have not been system, 

unmindful of certain limitations which characterize his 
conceptions, nor of the staple criticisms which have 
been urged against the foundations he laid. And, again, 
in endeavoring to make it clear that his philosophy and 
his pedagogy are closely related, and not widely sepa- 
rated, the effort has not proceeded disregardful of the 
schematic and partial manner in which Kant himself 
worked out the details of the relation, and the limited 
application the former was given to the latter. It has 
been the usual attitude towards Kant's opinions on edu- 
cation to regard the contents of Ueber Pddagogik as 
aphoristic, and thus as favoring the selection of those 
happy sayings, and the rejection of those unfortunate 
sayings, which may or may not agree with the critic's 
own views. We have sought to show the limitations of 
this tradition of appreciation by endeavoring to point out 
the larger way in which his contributions to pedagogy 
should be regarded. 

The truest appreciation, however, is sane criticism. 
And Kant does not escape an application of that in- 

6 81 



82 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

tellectual instrument which he taught the nineteenth 
century to use so successfully. The destructive critic can 
Limitations perform his task with specious fruitfulness 
due to lack of -f ^le forgcts that Kant has no fixed termi- 

a Technical ° 

Vocabulary. uology, beyoud that outlined above, in these 
Notes, and that their fragmentary character permits many 
gaps to appear in his arguments. The obscurity thus 
easily made possible does not readily justify close criti- 
cism. As to a vocabulary, however, one finds that Kant 
employs terms which became technical for him, at least, 
as may be seen in the passages in Selection IV. And, 
besides, a very partial Kantian might reply ad hominem 
that the whole field of education still remains without a 
fixed vocabulary. Criticism, if allowable, should also be 
tempered by the fact that many defects and inconsisten- 
cies may be due to the lack of his own editing of the 
material contained in the Notes. Thus making ample 
allowances for the character of the material available, 
the following criticisms are given in the sense that his 
theory suffers by limitation rather than by radical defect 
and insecurity. They can hardly be classified as belong- 
ing to the scope, material, processes, and methods of 
education. 

1. The most persistent apparent limitation of Kant's 

views on education seems to be his over-emphasis of the 

individual. Duproix has pointed this out as 

The Individual ^ ^ 

over-empha- the distinguishing feature of Kant's ideal, 
^^^^^' which Fichte corrected by giving education 

an interpretation in terms of national life. It is, indeed, 
true that the personal element stands out in both the 
Lecture-Notes and in the Selections, both in the generaliza- 



LIMITATIONS OF KANT'S EDUCATIONAL THEORY 83 

tions and in the rules which are laid down. And this indi- 
vidualism goes so far that to Kant the individual will, the 
innermost heart of humanity, becomes the centre of 
educational gravitation. Free personality stands to edu- 
cation as effect to cause, as purpose to conditions. The 
"man" which Kant generically employs, especially in the 
Introduction, means every individual, — and also, as we 
shall soon see, man^ not woman, in the literal sense. 
From this it is but a step to the affirmation of the doc- 
trine of the pedagogical equality of all men. But 
modern education is learning more and more rapidly 
that such equality is truthful only so long as it is con- 
ceived ideally. Psychological diversity represents the 
truer account of the material upon which educational 
processes must effect their achievements. 

It is just as true, however, that Kant's conception of 
the education of the individual is much wider and more 
complex than that conception of the indi- 

^ ^ Kant con- 

vidual as a static unit which is required to ceivedaRace 
give force to this criticism. The individual Pedagogy. 
was to him the individual as a representative member 
of the race. This racial conception marks the scope of 
his educational horizon (Sections 4, 11, 13), taken in its 
numerical or quantitative aspects. From a qualitative 
point of view, the individual man really becomes a true 
individual only as he becomes a citizen in the kingdom 
of moral ends. Furthermore, between the race and the 
moral aspects of individuality, Kant distinctly presents a 
conception of what might be called both state and social 
pedagogy, which is integrated into his ideal. Pedagogy 
and government are placed side by side as offering 



84 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

equally fundamental and difficult problems (12). The 
state and the school are mutually dependent institutions, 
and the state is roundly condemned when it advances its 
own ends and cares naught for the education of its 
citizens (16, 17, and Selection II. p. 240). This feature 
is carried over into the division of schools as public and 
private (22). 

In addition to this external side of the civic organiza- 
tion of education, citizenship and social fitness are two 
Education in- significant momcuts in the ideal of educa- 
ciudes Citizen- ^j^^ ^Yiidi Kant demands should be con- 

ship and Social 

Fitness. structivcly realized in the formation of the 

complete man. These appear in "civilization" (18c), in 
''pragmatic culture" (326, 33), in sociability (80, note, 
88), in worldly wisdom (92), in duties towards others 
(956), and in the recognition of the social dangers in 
human development (112). 

2. The second limitation, which is perhaps the chief 

defect in Kant's treatment of educational theory, is 

his complete omission of the education of 

Education of 

Woman girls. The sex problem in education ap- 

negiected pearcd to him, in so far as it was considered 
at all, in its negative aspects. The individual for whom 
he lays down rules positively is the boy. Sex phenom- 
ena and conditions, however, are recognized by him, and 
contribute several determinations to education. This is 
seen in various ways. The time limit of education is 
marked by nature herself, at the development of the sex 
instinct (26). Imparting a knowledge of sex relations is 
one of the difficult tasks of instruction (30). The de- 
velopment of will and the formation of character are 



LIMITATIONS OF KANT'S EDUCATIONAL THEORY 85 

distinctly correlated with adolescence (84, 86), and the 
conclusion of the Lecture-Notes deals directly with the 
problems of the guidance and the control of adolescence 
(110, 111). Kant thus is one of the first moderns to 
think clearly in this latter regard, and to anticipate the 
current emphasis placed upon this phase of the indi- 
vidual's development and some of the problems which 
it hands over to education. 

Kant's failure properly to conceive of, and to discuss, 
the education of girls is closely connected with his con- 
ception of woman. As early as 1764 we Kant's idea of 
find expression of his idea of the nature of woman. 

woman, and outlines of what the education of girls 
should be. "The fair sex has understanding, just the 
same as the masculine ; it is only a beautiful under- 
standing ; ours should be a deep understanding, which 
is an expression having a meaning identical with the 
sublime." " The content of the great science of woman 
is man, and among men a particular man. Her phi- 
losophy is not subtilizing, but feeling." Education must 
attempt to extend her entire moral feeling, and not her 
memory, not by general rules, but by acts of particular 
judgment on her part upon her environment. He 
allows for her study a little history, a little geography, 
and feeling for expression and for music, not as art, but 
as mere sensation. Since she has little understanding 
and much inclination, she should never be given "a 
cold and speculative teaching, but always sensations, 
and, indeed, those which remain as close as possible to 
her sex relations. This instruction is very rare, be- 
cause it demands talents, experience, and a heart full of 



86 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

feeling, and woman can very well dispense with every 
other, just as she can also without these educate her- 
self very well." Hence marriage enfranchises woman, 
whereas it destroys man's freedom. " Laborious learn- 
ing and painstaking subtilizing in a woman, even when 
she brings them to a high degree of perfection, destroy 
the prerogatives which are peculiar to her sex ; they 
can, it is true, because of their rarity, make her an 
object of cold admiration, but at the same time they will 
weaken the charms which give her so much power over 
the other sex. A woman who has her head full of 
Greek, like Mme. Dacier, or who carries on profound 
discussions in mechanics, like the Marquise de Chas- 
telet, may just as well have a beard beside ; for a 
beard would perhaps express still more unmistakably 
the air of profoundness which she is trying to acquire."^ 
'* So far as learned women are concerned : they use 
their hoohs in something like the way that they use their 
watch, — namely, carry it, in order to let it be seen that 
they have one ; it is immaterial whether or not it runs 
or keeps time."^ In fine, Kant accepted the general 
opinion of his age in attempting to reduce the education 
of girls to the formation of taste and the feelings. (See 
Selection I., Nos. 4, 5, 6, 7, 22, 23, 24, 47.) 

Kant must, however, be credited with having insisted 
that the education of woman should be determined, not 
by the abstract possibilities of science, or of her intel- 



* Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and the Sublime 
(1764).— Hartenstein, ii. pp. 252-254. 

^Anthropology, etc. (1798). — Hartenstein, vii. p. 631. 



LIMITATIONS OF KANT'S EDUCATIONAL THEORY 87 

lect, but rather in terms of the life which she is to live 
biologically and socially. From this conception we have 
not moved at the present time a single step, whatever 
our practices in the secondary and higher education of 
girls and women may be. 

3. At the risk of some repetition, mention should be 
made of the limitation in his treatment of the so-called 
intellectual education. This was not ex- Limited Treat- 
actly omitted, and yet we find but very I'^^ila^J^ji^J;^ 
little attention given to the subjects of study. tion. 

He places the education of the intellect within the realm 
of "the physical," implying thereby that there are 
natural faculties of the mind which must be given a 
^iiasi-mechanical development before their true educa- 
tion can take place. This is also signified in the dis- 
tinction between the "free" and the "scholastic" culture 
which the mind may have, the former being passive 
and the latter more active. At the same time Kant 
condemns turbulent curiosity in children, and fully 
understands the dangers of distraction and other dis- 
turbances of attention. When we come to the positive 
treatment of the intellect, we find it to be the logical 
rather than the imaginative-affective intellect which re- 
ceives by far the larger share of treatment. Romances 
and music are interdicted as intellectual subjects. 
Poetry is not mentioned, — a strange omission in view 
of the fact that at one time Kant was offered the uni- 
versity chair of poetry. Mathematics and the sciences 
were preferred above history and language, which were 
also admitted into his scheme of studies. 

In the Critique of Judgment a portion of the subject- 



88 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

matter of education — the literary classics of Greece and 

Rome — is evaluated on grounds different from those 

which appear in the Lecture- Notes. Al- 

Educative ^ ^ 

Value of Liter- tliough presenting a phase of aesthetic edu- 
ar> assies. g^tion, the passagc may find place here. 

" The propaedeutic to all fine art, in so far as the degree 
of its perfection is concerned, seems to lie, not in rules, 
but rather in the culture of the mental powers by those 
kinds of knowledge which are called humaniora; prob- 
ably because humanity means the universal feeling of 
sympathy, on the one hand, and the ability to communi- 
cate one's feelings cordially and generally, on the other ; 
these characteristics taken together constitute mankind's 
appropriate happiness, whereby they are differentiated 
from the limitations of animals. The age as well as the 
nation in which the active impulse to organized social 
life, whereby a people constitutes a permanent com- 
munity, struggled with the great and difficult task of 
combining freedom (and hence equality) with restraint 
(rather respect and submission from a sense of duty 
than fear) : such an age and such a nation had to invent 
the art of mutual communication of ideas between the 
educated and the ignorant classes, combining the en- 
largement and refinement of the former with the natural 
simplicity and originality of the latter, and in this way 
discover that medium between the higher culture and 
temperate nature which constitutes the correct stand- 
ard, one not to be indicated by general rules, as well 
for taste as for universal human understanding. 

" It is not probable that a later age will dispense with 
this standard ; for it will be less and less near to nature, 



LIMITATIONS OF KANT'S EDUCATIONAL THEORY 89 

and finally, without having lasting examples from her, 
would hardly be in a position to form a conception of 
the happy union, in one and the same nation, of the 
lawful restraint of the highest culture with the power 
and justice of free nature, conscious of her own value." ^ 
4. The next limitation to be pointed out is twofold. 
It pertains to the role of the feelings assigned to peda- 
grogy, and to their development under the 

^ ^^^ ^ Education of 

educative material of aesthetics. The first Feeling 

feature of this limitation is affirmed, the neglected, 
other implied. The feelings of the individual are prac- 
tically banished from any share in education, and the 
claims of aesthetics as making positive contribution to 
the realization of pedagogy's ideal are neglected. These 
items reflect Kant's rigorous conception of human life 
and of the conditions under which its greatest aims are 
to be actualized. 

In his educational theory Kant despises the feelings, 
both in instruction and in moralization, quite as much 
as in his ethical theory, in which they are forced from a 
contributive portion to conduct. In his psychology, as 
pointed out above, he came to look upon the feelings as a 
distinct group of mental activities, — so distinct that they 
gave rise to the unique philosophical problems which he 
discussed in the third Critique. In the Lecture-Notes^ how- 
ever, the explicit references to the culture of the feelings 
and the development of taste are only two (52, 70). At 
the same time it must be admitted that, according to the 
classifications in his psychology, much of feeling comes 

* Hartenstein, v. p. 367. 



90 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

under will and the mechanical development of motives 
through discipline and training. Beyond this, however, 
in so far as the feelings come in for any recognition, they 
are decried educationally, being looked upon as having a 
selfish, softening effect upon the character. In his great 
care for strong, virile character, he desires that the dan- 
gers of ease, indolence, and "languishing sympathy," 
of pride, emulation, and shame be removed as far as 
possible from absorption by the forming mind. At the 
same time, one should not forget to observe that Kant 
can be immeasurably tender with childhood and youth 
(88), whose great possibilities he idealizes into absolute 
worth. In his hurling defiance at the feelings, which is 
such a marked defect in his educational scheme, and in 
his profound regard for the rational heart, we find para- 
doxically a secret source of the great power he exercised 
over his own times. This negative pedagogy of the feel- 
ings is also thoroughly consistent with his ethical criti- 
cism of every form of eudaemonism as incapable of 
setting up adequate moral standards. 

The much broader feature of this limitation is Kant's 
neglect of aesthetic education. This may be closely as- 
sociated with the second limitation pointed 
Values out above. To have pursued the culture of 

involved in ^j^g feelings with the material of art may 

his Theory. ° *' 

have meant to Kant the feminization of the 
should-be science of pedagogy. (See Selection I., Nos. 
6, 22.) He omits the entire region of art and aesthetic 
appreciation as objects of training, as material for culture, 
and as promotive of large sections in a full moral per- 
sonality. At the same time, do not aesthetic motifs color 



LIMITATIONS OF KANT'S EDUCATIONAL THEORY 91 

his educational ideal? What else, then, are the per- 
fection of human nature (7), the proportionate develop- 
ment of the capacities (10), and the ideal of the destiny 
of humanity (15, 95) as found in the sublimity of moral 
action (78)? But with all this implication, the nearest 
approach he makes to the ideal of education as beautify- 
ing man is his demand that man shall be " civilized" 
(18c). 

If we turn to the Critique of Judgment^ we find that 
the development and the formation of the aesthetical 
feelings and taste, which are found by psychological 
analysis to be constituent in human nature, are not 
overlooked. They are also found to have their objective 
counterpart in the finer arts which have developed with 
civilization. This suggests what we have repeatedly seen 
to be true, that the pedagogical thought and interest of 
Kant the philosopher are really larger than those of Kant 
the pedagogue. To the former no fundamental disci- 
pline of science and speculation is complete without its 
due section on the pedagogy of itself. In this instance 
we see that that which is neglected in the lectures, thus 
displaying an inconsistency with the philosophical sys- 
tem, presents a powerful influence in his systematic 
treatise on the nature of taste. It is barely possible that 
his own mind had not reached, by the time of his last 
course of lectures on pedagogy, the point in its develop- 
ment at which aesthetic analysis was undertaken with 
constructive intent. And yet, there stands the essay of 
1764 on the feehng of the beautiful and the sublime. 

The beginnings of the modern theory of aesthetic 
education can be traced to the third Critique. In its 



92 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

preface, Kant characterizes this work as undertaking an 
investigation of the faculty of taste, as ?esthetical judg- 
ment, merely with transcendental intent, but 

The Founder ' *' ' 

of Modern uot for the Sake of the formation and cul- 
^sthetics. ^^^^ ^^ |.^^^ faculty. For, he opines, the 

latter '' will continue to pursue its way, as heretofore, 
without any such inquiries." ^ This non-pedagogical 
conception of aesthetics is further expressed in the view 
that " there is no science of beauty, but only criticism ; 
no beautiful science, but only beautiful art."^ In his 
division of aesthetical philosophy, the usual " elements" 
and "method" are not retained; since "for fine art 
there is only a manner (modus), but not a method of in- 
struction {raethodus)^ ^ As Kant worked out his views 
on the nature of art and its relations to the human mind, 
these formal opinions did not prevail. His real problem 
assumed pedagogical meaning in addressing itself to the 
question of the relations between beauty and conduct. 
How can the good will be carried over into the world of 
sense ? He answers by placing taste between sense and 
morality. The merely agreeable is wholly sensuous. 
The good will is wholly rational. The beautiful is the 
sensuous-rational.'' In this way taste is a fit preparation 
for freedom. And a true lover of the beautiful is always 
morally good.^ 

" Now, I say : the beautiful is the symbol of the 
morally good; and in this respect does it give us a 
pleasure with which we expect others to sympathize, 



^ Hartenstein, v. p. 176. * Ibid., p. 314. 

3 Ibid., p. 366. * Ibid., p. 214. ^ Ibid., pp. 208, 308. 



LIMITATIONS OF KANT'S EDUCATIONAL THEORY 93 

whereby the mind is conscious of a certain exaltation 
and elevation above the mere susceptibility of desire 
through impressions of the senses, and at the same time 
estimates the worth of others according to a similar 
maxim of their judgment."^ "Taste makes possible 
the transition from sensuous pleasure to habitual interest 
in morality without a too violent leap, by representing 
the imagination, even in its freedom, as capable of being 
determined in adaptation to the understanding, and 
teaching us to fmd free satisfaction with no sensuous 
pleasure, even in objects of sense." ^ 

How completely aesthetics thus returns to the actual- 
izing support of the ideal of education is, finally, to be 
seen towards the close of the Cintique^ where 
Kant characterizes the intentions of nature conduct 

with respect to man. (See Selection IV.) ^'^^^^^^^^'J^^^^ 
The final aim of nature is not man's happi- 
ness, but man's culture^ with its highest application to 
freedom. Discipline and the acquisition of skill are 
preparatory stages in this culture. In the higher edu- 
cation of man, the study of the humanities, art, and 
science must finally contribute to the actualization of 
this natural end. " Fine arts and sciences, which make 
men well-behaved, even if not morally better, by a 
universally communicable desire, and by politeness and 
social refinement, rob the sensuous inclinations of much 
of their tyranny, and thus prepare man for a mastery, 
in which reason alone shall have power ; while the evils 
with which partly nature and partly the untamable 

1 Hartenstein, v. p. 364. ' Ibid., p. 366. 



94 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

selfishness of men assail us, call forth, increase, and steel 
the powers of the soul, that they may not succumb to 
these influences, and thus they make us feel a fitness, 
which lies hidden within us, for higher aims." ^ It was 
Schiller who declared an absolute confidence in this 
educative power of art, and it was Herbart, borrowing 
from both Kant and Schiller, who labored to systematize 
instruction and discipline for the realization of this end. 

^ Hartenstein, v. p. 447. 



LITERATURE 

ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS OF KANT'S WRITINGS 

The following list of Kant's writings which have been translated 
into English is here given to aid those English-reading students of 
his educational theory who desire to familiarize themselves more 
widely with his other scientific and philosophical doctrines. It is 
not complete, but includes only those writings which will throw 
most light upon his theory and those translations which are most 
apt to be accessible at the present time.^ 

Kant's Cosmogony, by W. Hastie, Glasgow, 1900. (This volume 
contains his essay on The Retardation of the Earth's Rotation, and 
Natural History and Theory of the Heavens. ) 

KanVs Introduction to Logic and his Essay on the Mistaken Sub- 
tilty of the Four Figures, by T. K. Abbott, London, 1885. 

KanVs Dreams of a Spirit-seer illustrated by the Dreams of Meta- 
physics, by E. F. Goerwitz, London, 1900. 

KanVs Inaugural Dissertation of 1770, by W. J. Eckoff, New 
York, 1894. 

Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, by Max Miiller, London, 1881 ; 
reprinted with alterations, London and New York, 1896. 

The Philosophy of Kant in Extracts, by J. Watson, new edition, 
Glasgow, 1895. (This volume contains translated selections from 
the Critique of Pure Reason, the Fundamental Principles of the 
Metaphysics of Ethics, the Critique of Practical Reason, and the 
Critique of Judgment.) 

1 It is adapted from the complete list of translations published 
some years ago in the Kantstudien, by Professor G. M. Duncan, 
who has kindly brought it down to date for special use in this 
volume. 

95 



96 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

Kant's Prolegomena, and Metaphysical Foundations of Natural 
Science, by E. B. Bax, London, 1883. 

Kant's Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysics, by P. Carus, 
Chicago, 1901. 

Kant's Principles of Politics, by W. Hastie, Edinburgh, 1891. 
(This volume contains Idea of a Universal History from a Cosmo- 
politan Standpoint, Parts IL and IH. of Upon the Common Saying : 
A Thing may be Good in Tfieory, but not in Practice, and Eternal 
Peace : a Philosophical Scheme. ) 

Kant's Philosophy of Law, by W. Hastie, Edinburgh, 1887 
(being Part L of The Metaphysics of Ethics). 

Kant's Ethical Theory, by T. K. Abbott, fifth edition, London 
and New York, 1898. (This volume contains Fundamental Prin- 
ciples of the Metaphysics of Ethics, the Critique of Practical Reason, 
Part \. oi On the Radical Evil in Human Nature, Part L of Religion 
within the Limits of Mere Reason, the General Introduction to The 
Metaphysics of Ethics, and the Preface and Introduction to Part II. 
of the same, and Upon an Alleged Right to Lie from Motives of 
Humanity. ) 

Kant's Critique of Judgment, by J. H. Bernard, London, 1892. 

Kant' s Anthropology Pragmatically Considered, by A. E, Kroeger, 
in American Journal of Speculative Philosophy, vols. 9 ff., St. 
Louis, 1875 ff. 

Kant on Education, by Miss A. Churton, Introduction by Mrs. 
R. Davids, London, 1899. 

SEPARATE EDITIONS OF - UEBER PADAGOGIK" 

Immanuel Kant, bearbeitet von G. Frohlich und F. Korner, Die 
Klassiker der Padagogik, Bd. xi., herausgegeben von G. Frohlich, 
Langensalza, 1890. 

Emmanuel Kant, Traite de Pedagogic (traduction Jules Barni), 
avec une preface des sommaires analytiques et un lexique par Ray- 
mond Thamin. Paris, Alcan, 1886. 

Immanuel Kant, TJber Padagogik. Mit Kant's Biographie 
herausgegeben von T. Vogt, 2te Auflage, Langensalza, 1883. 
Beyer's Bibliothek padagogischer Klassiker, Bd. viii. 



LITERATURE 97 

Immanuel Kant, Ueber Pddagogik. Mit Einleitung und Anmer- 
kung verseheii von 0. Willmann, 2te Auflage, Leipzig. Richter's 
Padagogische Bibliothek, Bd. x. 

EXPOSITION AND CRITICISM 

From the large mass of Kantian literature the following selec- 
tions may be mentioned here. 

Becker. Immanuel Kant und die deutsche Nationalerziehung . 
Worms, 1876. 

Beyer, C. Erziehung zur Vernunft. Philosophisch-padagogische 
Grundlinien fiir Erziehung und Unterricht, 3te Auflage. Wien, 
1877. 

Bohmer, 0. Die Pddagogik bd Kant und Herbart. Marburg, 
1892. 

Burger, A. Ueber die Gliederung der Pddagogik Kants. Jena, 
1890. 

Duproix, P. Kant et Fichte et le probllme de V Education. 
Geneva, 1895. 

Hollenbach, W. Darstellung und Beurthdlung der Pddagogik 
Kants. Jena, 1881. 

Jahn, M. Der Einfiuss der Kantischen Psychologie auf die 
Pddagogik als Wissenschaft. Neue Jahrbucher fiir Philologie und 
Padagogik, 1884, II. Abt. Leipzig. 

Kipping, F. A. Die Grundziige der Kantischen Pddagogik. 
Padagogische Blatter fiir Lehrerbildung und Lehrerbildungsan- 
stalten, 1882, Bd. xi. pp. 370 ff. 

Light, J. K. KanVs Influence on German Pedagogy. Lebanon, 
1893. 

Mclntyre, J. L. Kanfs Theory of Educatio7i. Educational 
Review, New York, 1898, xvi. pp. 313-327. 

Phillipson, R. Die dsthetische Erziehu7ig, ein Beitrag zur lehre 
Kants, Schillers, und Herbarts. Magdeburg, 1890. 

Prosch, F. Die Pddagogik Kants. Zeitschrift fiir das Real- 
schulwesen, Bd. ix., 1884. 

Rehorn, A. Kanfs Ansichten liber den religiosen Unterricht. 
Wetzlar, 1876. 

7 



98 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

Richter, A. Kanfs Ansichten iiber Erziehung. Halberstadt, 
1865. 

Striimpell. Die Pddagogik der Philosophen Kant, Fichte, 
Herbart. Braunschweig, 1843. 

Temming, E. Beitrag zur Darstellung und Kritik der moral- 
ischen Bildungslehre Kanfs. Braunschweig, 1892. 

Vogel, A. Kant, in Geschichte der Pddagogik als Wissenschaft, 
pp. 189-208. Gutersloh, 1877. 

Vogel, A. Die philosophischen Grundlagen der wissenschaftlichen 
Systeme der Pddagogik (Locke, Kant, Hegel, Schleiermacher, Her- 
bart, Beneke), 2te Auflage. Langensalza, 1889. 

The more elaborate encyclopaedias and histories of education 
may also be consulted, such as Buisson's, Lindner's, Rein's, 
Schmidt's, Ziegler's, etc. 



IMMANUEL KANT'S 
LECTURE-NOTES ON PEDAGOGY 

FIRST EDITED BY 

FRIEDRICH THEODOR RINK 
1803 



INTRODUCTION 

1. Man is the only creature that must be educated. 
By education we mean care (maintenance), discipHne^ 
(training-), and instruction, includinar cul- 

^ °^' ' ^ Types of Edu- 

ture.^ Man is thus babe, pupil, and cationai Ac- 
scholar. '^^*^- 

2. Animals employ their powers, as soon as they 
have any, properly ; ^ that is to say, in such a manner 
that they do not injure themselves. It is, indeed, won- 
derful to see young swallows, although 

hardly out of the eggs, and still blind, know- 
ing how to arrange to let their excrement fall outside 
the nest. Animals need, therefore, no care ; at the most 

^ Discipline is regarded by Kant as the negative part of educa- 
tion. Its function is to prepare the way for the later positive part, 
which is culture. 

^ This conception of ''culture'' (Bildung) is to be understood 
here in its stricter meaning of moral culture, referred to in Sections 
31, 32. In Section 6 this term is used in its wider meaning, 
and is there translated as "education." (Cf. Section 18c and d: 
in c "cultivation" and "instruction" are fused together as the 
third form of educational activity.) In Section 21 culture consti- 
tutes the only positive aspect of education. (Cf. Section 58.) This 
term * * culture' ' is very generally used by Kant, and is, perhaps, 
next to ' * morality, ' ' the most important item in his conception of 
education, 

' Vogt rightly suggests that this kind of use of their powers is 
"purposive" rather than "proper." 

101 

LOfC. 



102 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

only food, warmth, and oversight, or a certain protec- 
tion. Most animals need nourishment, but no care. 
By care is understood that foresight on the part of 
parents which sees that children make no harmful use 
of their powers. Should, for example, an animal cry 
at its birth, as children do,^ it would certainly become 
the prey of wolves or of other wild animals, lured to 
the spot by its cry. 

3. Discipline, or training, changes animal nature into 
human nature. An animal is already fully equipped 
The Necessity through iustiuct ; a foreign reason has made 
of Discipline, complete provisiou for it. But man needs 
his own reason.^ He has no instinct, and must 



^ See Section 40 as to the cause of this crying. 

' In his Idea of a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point 
of View (1784) Kant gives a more formal expression of this antith- 
esis between nature and humanity, between instinct and reason : 
"Third Proposition: Nature has willed that man shall produce 
everything, which is over and above the mechanical arrangement 
of his animal existence, entirely from himself, and shall have part 
in no happiness or perfection other than that which he, instinc- 
tively free, has procured for himself by his own reason." — Harten- 
stein, iv. p. 145. 

" Instinct, this voice of Ood, which all animals obey, is the new- 
born infant's only guide." — Probable Beginnings of Human His- 
tory (1786), Hartenstein, iv. p. 317. 

In his Anthropology with Reference to Pragmatic Ends the dif- 
ference between man and animals is stated to consist in the fact 
that "man has a character which he creates himself, since he has 
the faculty of perfecting himself according to purposes derived 
from himself, by means of which he can turn himself from an 
animal endowed with the capacity of reason {animal rationabile) 



INTRODUCTION 103 

arrange the plan of his own behavior. However, since 
he is not immediately capable of doing this, because he 
is raw when he comes into the world, others must do it 
for him. 

4. The human race is to draw gradually from itself, 
through its own exertions, all the natural qualities of 
humanity. One generation educates another. 
One can, therefore, seek the beginnings [of Raceseif- 

human history] either in a barbarous or in dependent. 
a completely developed condition. If the latter is as- 
sumed as existing first and primarily, then man must 
afterwards have become wild and degenerated into 
barbarity.^ 

Discipline prevents man from being turned aside by 

into a rational animal {animal rationale) : as such he is able, Jirst, 
to support himself and his kind, which he, secondly, exercises, 
instructs, and educates for domestic society ; and, thirdly, governs 
as a systematic totality (arranged on the basis of rational principles) 
belonging to society," etc. — Hartenstein, vii. p. 646. Kant then 
proceeds to give a much more complex differentiation of man from 
the animals than is implied in the simple contrast stated in Sec- 
tion 3. (See selections to Section 18d in Selection IV. p. 249.) 

^ Cf. Section 13. In his essay on the Probable Beginnings of 
Human History (1786) Kant attempted to combine what might be 
called the Eden theory and the Savage theory of the condition 
of primitive man, the stage of instinct being that of paradisaical 
innocency, and the stage of reason that which followed in a period 
of blame where human development really began. That is, 
human history had its beginnings with the awakening of will. 
Kant here uses his notion of the freedom of the will as the corner- 
stone of his philosophy of history. "Culture," with all its vices, 
thus follows upon a state of "nature." — Hartenstein, iv. p. 315 f. 



104 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

his animal impulses from his destiny, which is humanity. 
It must restrain him from betaking himself wildly and 
thoughtlessly into danger. Training \_Zucht], therefore, 
is merely negative ; it is the action by which one rids 
man of his wildness ; instruction, on the contrary, is the 
positive part of education. 

Wildness is independence of laws. Discipline sub- 
jects man to the laws of humanity, and begins to let 
him feel the constraint of law. This, however, should 
take place early. Thus, for instance, we at first send 
children to school, not so much with the intention that 
they shall learn something there, as with the idea that 
they may become accustomed to sit still and to observe 
promptly that which is enjoined upon them, in order 
that in the future they may not attempt immediately to 
carry out their every caprice. 

5. Man, however, has such a great natural instinct 
for freedom that he sacrifices everything for it when 
^. . ,. ^ once he has been accustomed to it for any 

Discipline and '' 

the Instinct for length of time.^ For this very reason must 
Freedom. discipline, as already said, be brought into 

use very early ; for, if this is not done, it is a very dif- 
ficult matter to change man later. He then follows 
every caprice. It is observable also in savage nations, 
that even though they act as servants for Europeans for 
a long time, they never accustom themselves to the 

^ This instinct for freedom is called, in the Anthropology, etc., 
" the most violent of all the passions of savages." — Hartenstein, 
vii. p. 589. 



INTRODUCTION 105 

latter's mode of living. With them, however, this is not 
a noble instinct for freedom, as Rousseau^ and others 
maintain, but a certain rawness ; for in this instance the 
animal has, so to speak, not yet developed the humanity 
within it. Man must, therefore, be early accustomed to 
subject himself to the commands of reason. If, in his 
youth, he is granted his own will, and opposed in nothing, 
he will retain a certain wildness throughout his whole 
life. Nor is it any advantage to him to be indulged in 
youth with an all too great maternal tenderness, for he 
will find only so much the more opposition, and will 
receive thrusts from all sides, when once he enters into 
the affairs of the world.^ 

* A French philosopher (1712-1778), author of the revolution- 
ary doctrine of naturalism, which was violently opposed to the 
earlier rationalism. Kant was one of the great German thinkers 
who were profoundly influenced by Rousseau, whose chief edu- 
cational work was the Emile, 1762. It is a philosophical romance, 
ushering in a new pedagogic era. 

"^ In his conception of will training by means of meeting will 
resistance, which reappears throughout the Lecture- Notes, Kant 
takes a position opposite to, and critical of, that assumed by Rous- 
seau. * ' So long as children find resistance only in things, and 
never in wills, they will become neither rebellious nor choleric, 
and will the better keep themselves in a state of health." — Emile, 
Payne's translation. New York, 1893, p. 29. 

That Kant must have taken this process of will opposition 
seriously, even outside his educational theory, can be seen in the 
following passages found in the Idea of a Universal History from 
a Cosmopolitan Point of View : 

" Fourth Proposition : The means of which nature makes use 
in order to effect the development of all her capacities is their an- 
tagonism in society, in so far as this becomes in the end the cause 



106 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

It is a common defect in the education of royalty, 
that, since they are destined to be rulers, no one really 
opposes them in their youth. With man, on account 
of his inclination to freedom, a certain polishing of his 
roughness is necessary ; with the animal, however, this 
is not necessary, on account of its instincts. 

6. Man needs care and education.^ Training and in- 
struction are included under education. So far as is 
ANewciassifi- kuowu, uo animal needs these; none of 
EducatSnai them learn anything from their parents, ex- 
Activities, cept birds their singing.^ In this they are 
instructed by the parent-birds, and it is affecting to ob- 

of a uniform order of the same. By antagonism, I mean here 
the unsocial sociability of men. . . . Man has a disposition to as- 
sociate ; since in such a state he feels himself more as a man, — 
that is, the development of his natural capacities. But he also has 
a great inclination to detach (isolate) himself. . . . Then occur 
the first true steps out of rawness towards culture, which consists 
really in the social value of man ; then all talents become gradually 
developed, the taste formed, etc. . . . Man desires peace ; but 
nature knows better what is good for his species : she wishes dis- 
cord. 

* ' All culture and art adorning humanity, the most beautiful 
social order, are fruits of unsociability, which is constrained by 
itself to discipline itself, and thus, through extorted art, to develop 
completely the germs of nature." — Hartenstein, iv. pp. 146-148. 

^ See Section 1, note 2. This division of educational activities 
is only partial and cursory, and is made for the purpose of fixing 
more closely the meaning of "education." 

''■ Kant treats this question of the song of birds in his Anthro- 
pology^ etc. In his lectures on that subject in 1790-91 this song 
tradition was regarded as a process corresponding to the educational 



INTRODUCTION 107 

serve them sing, as in a school, before their young Avith 
all their strength ; and these, in turn, try to bring the 
same tones out of their little throats. In order to' be 
convinced that birds do not sing from instinct, but actu- 
ally learn it, it is worth while to make an experiment. 
Take away about half the eggs from a canary and re- 
place them with sparrow eggs ; or, even exchange very 
young sparrows with the young of the canary. If, now, 
these are taken into a room where they cannot hear the 
sparrows outside, they learn the singing of the canary, 
and you have singing sparrows. It is also really very 
wonderful that each species of birds retains a certain 
song through all generations, and the tradition of song 
is, probably, the truest in the world. 

7. Man can become man through education only. 
He is only what education makes him.^ It is to be 
noted that man is educated only by man, and by those 

activity of man. For an interesting study whose conclusions seem 
to support Kant's illustration, see "Data on Song in Birds," by 
Scott, in Science, N. S., xiv. p. 522 f. 

It is probable that Kant's view of instinct versus learning among 
animals will be greatly revised when the final chapter on ' ' learn- 
ing" is written by our comparative psychologists. It has long 
since been known that bird-singing is not the only instance of 
learning, as stated in the text. This growth in more recent knowl- 
edge, however, does not do violence to the fundamental contrast 
Kant brings forward. (See Morgan's Introduction to Comparative 
Psychology, pp. 170, 210.) 

^ It need hardly be remarked that there is difficulty in bringing 
this declaration into consistency with the ethical principles con- 
tained in his writings on practical philosophy. 



108 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

men who are educated themselves. Defects, therefore, 
in the discipUne and instruction of some men make 
them poor educators of their pupils.^ If a 
Pe^r^ction De- being of a superior nature were to assume 
pendent upon \j^q ^^re of our educatiou, we would then 

Education. 

see what man could become. But, smce 
education partly teaches man something and partly 
merely develops something within him, it cannot be 
known how far his natural qualities go. If only an ex- 
periment were to be made under royal patronage, and 
through the united efforts of many, there might be dis- 
closures as to what man might accomplish. It is as 
important for the philosopher as it is mournful for the 
philanthropist to observe how royalty usually care only 
and always for themselves, and never take part in the 
important experiment of education in such a manner 
that nature may take a step nearer perfection. There 
is no one, injured by neglect in his youth, but should 
himself see in mature years wherein he has been neg- 
lected, either in discipline or in culture (as one might 
call instruction). He who is not cultivated is raw ; he 
who is not disciplined is wild. The omission of disci- 
pline is a greater evil than the neglect of culture ; for 
the latter can be recovered in later years, but wildness 
cannot be removed and a blunder in discipline cannot 



^ In the Anthropology, etc., Hartenstein, vii. p. 652, Kant 
regards the problem of moral education for our species as still 
unsolved, because our evil propensities are looked upon with dis- 
approval and are curbed, but are not wiped out. (See Section 12, 
note, p. 114.) 



INTRODUCTION 109 

be retrieved. It is possible for education to become 
better and better, and for each successive generation to 
take a step nearer the perfection of humanity ; for be- 
hind education lurks the great secret of the perfection 
of human nature.^ Henceforth this is actually possible, 
since now, for the first time, we are beginning to judge 
properly and to see clearly what essentially belongs to 
a good education. It is enrapturing to fancy that human 
nature will be better and better developed through edu- 
cation, and that this can be brought into a form suitable 
to humanity. This opens to us the prospect of a happier 
human race in the future. 

8. An outline of a Theory of Education is a noble 
ideal, and does no harm even if we are not in a position 
to realize it immediately. But one should 

•' Theory of 

not consider the idea chimerical, and cry it Education 
down as a beautiful dream, simply because *" ^^^^^' 

its execution meets with hindrances. 

An idea is nothing else than the concept of a perfec- 
tion which has not yet been met with in experience ; as, 
for example, the idea of a perfect repubhc governed 
according to the laws of righteousness. Is it for that 
reason impossible? Our idea must first be right, and 
then it is not at all impossible, even with all the hin- 
drances which now stand in the way of its realization. 
If, for instance, every one should lie, would, merely for 



1 This affirmation, taken in connection with Sections 10, 15, 
is truly Kantian. The moral aspect of education appears in the 
foreground. (See Selection II.) 



110 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

that reason, truthfulness be only a vagary? And the 
idea of an education which is to develop all the natural 
qualities in man is certainly truthful/ 

9. Man does not fully attain the purpose of his exist- 
ence with his present education. For, how differently 

do men live ! There can be a uniformity 

Present *' 

Education of amoug them only if they act according to 
Man Imperfect. ^^^^ same maxims, and these maxims would 
have to become second nature to them. We can labor 
on the plan of a more suitable education, and hand 
down our directions to posterity, which can realize it 
little by little. It is observable, for example, in the au- 
ricula, that they are all of one and the same color when 
grown from a root ; but if, on the other hand, they are 
grown from seed, they are obtained with quite different 
and the most varied colors. Nature has so deposited 
the germs in them that the development of these varia- 
tions depends only upon the proper sowing and trans- 
planting. So with man. 

10. There are germs in human nature, and it becomes 
our concern to develop the natural capacities proportion- 

^ The conceptions of "idea" and "ideal" form the basis of 
considerably more than a third portion of the Critique of Pure 
Reason, — namely, the Transcendental Dialectic, which endeavors 
to present the illusory nature of the transcendental ideas of the 
soul, the world, and God. The illustration of the perfect republic 
appears there also, with particular reference to the Republic of 
Plato. In the Critique all ' ' ideas' ' are not regarded as ' ' truth- 
ful," since they lead human reason persistently into error. 



INTRODUCTION 111 

ately, to unfold humanity from its seeds, and to see 
to it that man attains his destiny. Animals attain their 
destiny of themselves, and without being 
aware of it. Man is obliged to make an of Education! 
effort to attain his ; but this cannot be done Attainment of 

Destiny. 

if he never has a concept of it. In the case of 
the individual the attainment of this goal is also utterly 
impossible. If we assume a really cultivated primitive 
pair, let us see how they would teach those intrusted 
to their care. The first parents give their children 
an example ; the latter imitate it, and so some natural 
qualities are developed. All cannot be trained after 
this manner, since, at the very best, the times are only 
occasional in which children see examples. In an- 
cient days men had no conception of the perfection to 
which human nature can attain. We ourselves are not 
yet perfectly clear about this conception. But this much 
is certain, that individuals, no matter how highly they 
may culture their pupils, cannot make them fulfil their 
destinies. The race, and not the individuals, can suc- 
ceed in doing this.^ 



^ Strong and valid exception can be taken to this racial concep- 
tion of education, in that it tends to misrepresent the true limits 
of any and all education, which must primarily be that of the 
individual ; on the other hand, there is no other way than that of 
education (unless we make exception of the way of genius) for the 
individual to reach his own destiny. Kant expressed the same 
thought in his Idea of a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan 
Point of View (1784), Hartenstein, iv. p. 144: ''Second Proposi- 
tion : In man (as the only rational creature on earth), those nat- 
ural capacities, which have in view the use of his reason, can be 



112 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

11. Education is an Art the practice of which must 
be brought to perfection in the course of many genera- 

completely developed only in the race, and not in the individual." 
"... Reason in a creature is a capacity to extend the rules and 
purposes of the uses of all its powers far beyond natural instinct, 
and there are no limits to its possibilities. It, however, does not 
act instinctively, but needs trials, practice, and instruction, in 
order to make progress gradually from one stage of insight to 
another. Therefore every man would have to live an excessively 
long time in order to learn how to make a complete use of all his 
natural capacities ; or, if nature has assigned him a short term 
of life (as it actually has), she needs, perhaps, an interminable 
series of generations, of which one will transmit its enlighten- 
ment to another, in order finally to urge her germs in our species 
to that degree of development which is appropriate to her inten- 
tion." — Ibid., p. 145. In his review the next year of the second 
part of Herder's Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Mensch- 
heit {Ibid., p. 191), Kant presents a more acceptable modification 
of this thought, which should not be omitted here: ". . . It is 
no contradiction to say, that it [the human race] is in all its parts 
asymptotic to this [its destiny] , and yet on the whole it does come 
together with it ; in other words, that no individual member of all 
the offspring of the human race, but only the species fully reaches 
its destiny. The mathematician can explain this ; the philosopher 
would say : the destiny of the human race as a whole is unceasing 
progress,'''' etc. 

In its balder form this view forces the whole problem of educa- 
tion to disappear, leaving no trace behind it (as Temming observes). 
Kant's pedagogy does not fare as badly, however, as a simpler evo- 
lutional pedagogy, which primarily attemps to be a race pedagogy. 
This is subject to the same limitations ; but the superiority of 
Kantian pedagogy lies in its concept of the moral destiny of the 
race, which, of course, breaks with all development. Kant con- 
ceived of education as a conscious struggle, in which the end is 
known from the beginning. Evolutional pedagogy puts the 



INTRODUCTION 113 

tions. Each generation, provided with the knowledge 
of its predecessors, can always produce an education 
which shall develop, proportionately and 

^' ^ ^ *' Education a 

purposively, all the capacities of man, and concern for 
thus lead the entire race towards its goal. 
Providence has decreed that man shall bring the good 
out of himself, and, as it were, says to him, " Go out 
into the world ; I have equipped you with every dispo- 
sition for the good/ It is your affair to develop them, 
and thus your own happiness and unhappiness depend 
upon yourself." Somewhat in this fashion could the 
Creator have spoken to man. 

12. Man is to develop first his native capabilities for 
the good. Providence has not placed them in him al- 
ready perfect and complete; they are only Education: 
bare potentialities, and without the distinc- Man's Greatest 

^ ' and Hardest 

tion of morality.^ Man is to seek to make Problem, 

himself better, to cultivate himself, and, if he is evil, to 
develop morality within himself. If one gives this ma- 
struggle down as going on unconsciously and without reference to 
the end. 

* To speak of a plurality of dispositions for the good might be 
proper empirical pedagogy, but it is not in harmony with Kant's 
ethical theory, which held "the good will" — only one factor — to 
be the sole basis of morality. 

"This statement is not in harmony with Kant's ethically estab- 
lished doctrine of transcendental freedom. The apparent fact of 
man's psychological (i.e., as rational) development, and the ethi- 
cal necessities of Criticism come into conflict more than once in 
these Lecture- Notes. (See note above and Section 102.) 

8 



114 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

ture reflection, he finds it to be very difficult. Educa- 
tion, therefore, is the greatest and hardest problem that 
can be proposed to man ; for insight depends upon 
education, and education, again, depends upon insight. 
Thus education can advance only step by step, and a 
proper idea of the peculiar nature of education can arise 
only as each generation hands down its experience and 
wisdom to the one following, and this, in turn, adding 
something, gives it over to its successor. But how 
great a culture and experience does this idea presup- 
pose ! It could, accordingly, arise only late, and we 
ourselves have not yet brought it into perfect clearness. 
I wonder, indeed, whether the education of the individ- 
ual should imitate the development of the race in gen- 
eral through its various generations. 

Two human inventions can be regarded as the most 
difficult, — namely, the art of government and that of 
education ; and yet we are still contending among our- 
selves as to their fundamental nature.^ 

13. But where shall we begin to develop the human 
capacities? Shall it be with a barbarous or with an 
Education and already cultured state ? It is hard to con- 
civiiization. ccive of an unfolding out of barbarity (that 
is why the concept of the primitive man is so difficult), 
and we see that in the case of a development from such 

^ While Kant indulges in representations of the extreme diffi- 
culty of the problem of education, it must not be thought that he 
regarded it as wholly unsolvable. To the end of his life he did 
not cease to look upon the race as making some definite progress 
towards the ideals of ethics. 



INTRODUCTION 115 

a condition man has always relapsed into barbarity, from 
which he has again elevated himself. We also fmd a 
very close adjacency to barbarity among very well 
civilized people in the earliest information they have left 
to us on record. But how much culture is already pre- 
supposed by writing ! In regard to civilized people, the 
beginning of the art of writing can be called the be- 
ginning of the world. 

14. Since the development of human capacities does 
not take place of its own accord, all education is an art. 
Nature has bestowed no instinct for that.^ Education a 
The origin, as well as the progress, of this Necessary Art. 
art is either mechanicals^ without plan, being arranged ac- 
cording to given circumstances, or rational. The art of 
education has a mechanical origin solely at those occa- 
sional times when we learn whether something is injurious 
or beneficial to man. Every art of education which arises 
merely mechanically must carry with it many faults and 
deficiencies, since it has no plan for its foundation. The 
art of education, or pedagogy, must therefore become 

* Modern pedagogy is coming more and more to ally the funda- 
mental qualities of the real teacher to the characteristics of the 
maternal instincts, an extension of which should pass upward into 
the work of education. Kant's view, then, is here rather to one 
side. 

^ This conception of "mechanism" is a characteristic Kantian 
term in accounting for events. For the most part, aside from its 
being a synonym for "nature," it is employed for the purposes 
of destructive criticism, when directed towards human efforts. 
(Cf. Section 20.) 



116 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

rational if it is to develop human nature so that it attain 
its goal. Parents already educated are examples which 
the children imitate. In order to improve children, it 
is necessary that pedagogy become a study, otherwise 
there is nothing to hope from it, and he who has been 
educated corruptly trains others in a like manner. 
The mechanism in educational art must be transformed 
into science, otherwise there will never be a united effort, 
and one generation will pull down what its predecessor 
has built up. 

15. One principle in the mi of education^ which those 
men who devise educational plans should especially 
The Idea of have in mind, is this : children should be 
prTcMrin * educated, not with reference to their present 
Pedagogy. condition, but rather with regard to a pos- 
sibly improved future state of the human race, — that is, 
according to the idea of humanity and its entire destiny. 
This principle is of great moment. Parents usually 
educate their children for the present world, corrupt 
though it be.^ They should, however, educate them 

^ To illustrate, by way of contrast, the simplicity of ends in 
ethics, Kant makes the following remark in the Fundamental 
Principles of the 3Ietaphysics of Morals (1785), Hartenstein, iv. p. 
263: "Since it is not known in early youth what aims maybe 
adopted later in life, parents try above all to have their children 
learn a great many different things, and provide for skill in the 
use of the means for all kinds of purposes, of none of which can 
they determine whether it could not perhaps be in the future the 
object of their pupil, but which it is still possible that he may have 
at some time ; and this is so great that they usually neglect to 
form and to correct their judgment about the value of the things 



INTRODUCTION 117 

better^ that an improved future condition be thereby- 
realized. 

16. But here we come upon two hindrances to this 
end : (a) Parents are usually anxious only that their 
children should prosper in the world, and ^ , . 

^ *■ Defective Aims 

(6) Princes regard their subjects as mere of Parents and 
instruments for the accomplishment of their Pn^ces. 

own purposes. 

Parents exercise forethought for the home, princes for 
the state. Neither have for their ultimate aim the good 
of the world and the perfection for which man is in- 
tended, and for which he also has the capacity. But the 
plan of an educational scheme should be made cosmo- 
politan. And is, then, the good of the world an idea 

which they might like to adopt as their purposes in life." (Cf. 
Section 95a.) 

The method by which Kant arrives at the pedagogical principle 
summarized in this section should be compared with the method 
by which he establishes one of his important ethical postulates, — 
namely, that of immortality. The highest good is held to be in a 
process of infinite or gradual realization ; therefore the necessity 
of the postulate to provide a time and place for that infinite real- 
ization. This line of reasoning was developed in his mind 
nearly a decade later than the method which appears in these 
Notes. Education being subject to the same conditions of slow 
progression, children should be brought under a scheme which 
looks to the future and not to the present. This "future" is not 
the mere sequent in biographical time, but the future of moral 
expansion and security. Kant's regenerative principle for educa- 
tion can scarce be regarded as formalistic, but is rather literally 
filled with an empirical, psychological content, — if one might 
speak of "principles" in such a paradoxical manner. 



118 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

which can be injurious to us in our private welfare? 
Never ! For, even if it seems necessary that something 
be sacrificed for it, nevertheless, one promotes through 
it the advantage of his present condition. And then, 
what splendid consequences attend it ! Good education 
is exactly that whence springs all the good in the world. 
It is necessary only to develop further the germs which 
man possesses ; for the elements of evil are not found 
in man's natural capacities. The only cause of evil is 
this, that nature is not brought under rules. In man 
there are only germs of good.^ 



1 If Rink properly edited this Note, it stands in contradiction 
with Kant's views expressed later in these Notes (see Section 
102) and with his more mature ethical views. For example, in 
his Religion within the Limits of Mere Reason, Part I. (first published 
1792, Hartenstein, vi. p. 113 f.), Kant held that human inclinations 
are enemies of the morally good, but also that these evil forces 
can be won over by the ideas of that good, germs of which are 
found in human nature. He almost travesties this conception 
here expressed as a foundation for educational theory — in which the 
influence of Rousseau may be seen most strongly at v/ork — in the 
following passage which stands almost at the opening of the above- 
named writing : "Newer, but much less wide-spread, is the oppo- 
site heroic opinion which has taken root probably among philoso- 
phers alone, and in our times especially among educators : that the 
world is continually moving forward in just the opposite direction, — 
namely, from bad to good (though almost unnoticeably) : at least 
the capacity for this is to be met with in human nature. But they 
certainly have not derived this opinion from experience, if they 
mean morally good or bad (not civilization) ; for the history of all 
times speaks too loudly against it ; but it is probably merely a 
good-hearted presupposition of the moralists from Seneca to Rous- 
seau, in order to incite to the patient cultivation of the seed of 



INTRODUCTION 119 

17. But whence shall come the improved condition 
of the world, — from princes or from subjects ? ^ Should 
the latter improve themselves and meet a 

Education of 

good government half-way? If it is to be Princes im- 
brought about by sovereigns, there must perfect, 

be an improvement in the training of the princes, — a 
training which for a long time has had this defect, that 
in their youth they met with no opposition. A tree 
standing alone in a field grows crooked and spreads its 
branches in every direction ; on the other hand, a tree 
which stands in the midst of a forest grows straight up- 
ward, because the trees near it offer it resistance, and 
it seeks the air and sun from above. So it is with 
princes. It is always better that they should be edu- 
cated by some one from among their subjects rather 
than by one of their own rank. Only as their education 
is superior can we expect good from the nobility. 
Hence the world's improvement depends chiefly upon 
private endeavors, and not so much upon the co-opera- 
tion of princes, as Basedow,^ and others think, since 

good which we perhaps possess, if one could only count upon a 
natural groundwork for this in man." (Cf. also Selection X.) 

1 Kant gives to this question an answer that is in direct opposi- 
tion to the reigning view of his time, which expected much progress 
in education from the efforts of royalty. In spite of this contrary 
answer, Kant gives preference for public education. (See Section 25. ) 

^ (1723-1790.) Basedow, for a time a professor of ethics and 
literature in Denmark, developed an educational system inspired 
by Rousseau, and, under the patronage of the Prince of Anhalt- 
Dessau, established his model school at Dessau in 1774, giving it 
the name of The Philanthropinum. Kant took an unusual interest 
in this experiment for a pedagogical laboratory, as may be seen in 



120 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

experience teaches us that the ultnnate aim of princes is 
not the promotion of the world's good, but rather the 
well-being of their own state, so that they may attain 
their own individual ends. When they provide money 
for educational enterprises, they reserve the right to con- 
trol the plans. So it is in everything which concerns 
the development of the human mind and the extension 
of human knowledge. Money and power do not create, 
but at most only facilitate. Yet they might bring it 
about, if only national economy did not credit in advance 
the state's income in favor of its own treasury. Up to 
the present time even universities have not brought 
about the world's improvement, and never was the 
probability of their doing it less than it is now.^ 

Therefore the management of the schools should be 
left entirely to the judgment of the most intelligent 
Experts in expcrts. All culturc begins with the indi- 
Education. vidual and thence extends itself. The gradual 
approach of human nature to its true end is possible 
only through the efforts of liberally inclined propagan- 
dists who take an interest in the world's welfare and 
who are capable of conceiving the idea of a future 
improved state. But many a ruler still looks upon his 

his appeal to the pubUc in its behalf, translated in Selection III. 
As another biographical instance of the close interest between 
philosophy and pedagogy, which did not originate in, but has dis- 
played a peculiar triumph in the modern era, one can cite the 
enthusiasm at a later date which Fichte showed at Pestalozzi's 
Institute at Yverdun. 

1 See Selection IX. , p. 264, for another criticism of the universi- 
ties of his day. 



INTRODUCTION 121 

people as only a part of the kingdom of nature, and has 
an eye to nothing but their propagation. At the most 
he wishes them to have ability, but solely in order to 
make of them better instruments for the accomplish- 
ment of his own purposes. It is true that individuals 
also should have in mind the great purpose of nature ; 
but they should reflect especially upon the development 
of humanity, and see to it that it become not only skil- 
ful but moral, and try to advance posterity further than 
they themselves have gone, which is the most difficult 
of all. 

18. In his education man must therefore be : ^ 
(a) Disciplined. — "To discipline" means to attempt 
to prevent the animal nature from becoming injurious 
to human nature in the individual as well The Pour 
as in the member of society. Discipline ^^^^cationai 
is, hence, only the taming of wildness. Activity. 

(6) Cultured. — Culture includes instruction and teach- 
ing. It furnishes skilfulness, which means the posses- 



1 This is the earliest complete division of educational activities 
given in these Notes, and is perhaps the most exhaustive of all the 
many divisions in which Kant indulges. At the same time, the 
terms of this division render it the only one that is in agreement 
with his usual mode of empirical and psychological analysis and 
of his adoption of technical terms. (See the passages gathered in 
Selection IV.) 

This division returns to that given in Section 1, which is rather 
"popular" inform. The distinctions of "cultivation," "civili- 
zation," and " moralization" correspond to those of "technical," 
"pragmatic," and "moral" in Section 32. (On the relation of 
this division to that in Section 72, see note to the latter.) 



122 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

sion of a faculty sufficient for the execution of any 
desired purpose. It determines no goal whatever, but 
leaves that to circumstances. 

Some kinds of skilfulness are good in all cases, — for 
example, reading and writing ; others for a single purpose 
only, as music, which makes us agreeable in company.^ 
Because of the multitude of aims, skilfulness becomes, 
in a certain sense, indefinitely varied. 

(c) Civilized, — It must also be seen to that man acquire 
prudence,^ be a suitable member of the social community, 
be well liked, and have influence. To this end there is 
necessary a certain form of culture which we call *' civi- 
lization."^ Essential thereto are manners, politeness, 

^ Kant did not regard music as a means of education in any 
sense of the term. He looked upon it as a negligible art, and 
seldom attended concerts. (See Selection V.) 

^The conception of "prudence" playing rather an extended and 
important part in Kant's division of educational activities (see 
Sections 32, 33, 91, 92) and having a quasi-ethical aspect, his own 
definition of it in 1785 may here be in place : "The word prudence 
is used in two senses : in one it can bear the name of worldly 
prudence, in the other that of private prudence. The first means 
a man's ability to have influence upon others, in order to use 
them for his purposes. The second is the insight to unite all these 
purposes for his own lasting benefit. The latter is especially that 
to which the value of the first is reduced, and of him who is pru- 
dent in the first sense of the term, but not in the second, it could 
better be said : he is clever and cunning, but on the whole impru- 
dent." — Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Ethics, 
Hartenstein, iv. p. 264. 

' This factor in education is here an addition to those factors 
mentioned in Sections 1, 6. It is the pragmatism of Sections 
32, 33, and the "worldly wisdom" of Sections 91, 92. In 



INTRODUCTION 123 

and a certain judiciousness by virtue of which all men 
may be used to one's own ultimate aims. This form of 
culture adjusts itself to the changeable taste of each age. 
Thus, a few decades ago people were still very fond of 
ceremonial in social intercourse. 

(c^) Moralized. — Moralization must not be neglected. 
Man should not only be qualified for all sorts of pur- 
poses, but he should acquire that type of mind which 
chooses good aims only. These are such as are neces- 
sarily approved by every one, and which at the same 
time can be the purpose of every one. 

19. Man can be either merely trained, taught, mechan- 
ically instructed, or really enlightened.^ Dogs and horses 
are trained and human beings can be trained Learning to 
also. (This word, dressiren^ "to train," is Think, 

derived from the English, "to dress," Meiden. Thus the 
place where the preacher changes his robes should be 
called Bresskammer^ and not Trostkammer}) 

It is not enough that children be trained ; the most 
important thing is that they learn to think. This leads 



Section 63 this "certain form" disappears entirely, being ab- 
sorbed by the elaboration there of IM. The word is taken rather 
in an active sense. 

^ This is only a cursory division of education, which seems to 
find its purpose in a desire to emphasize the moral factor by 
bringing it into strong contrast with mechanical instruction. 

' To play upon words was a source of great delight to Kant. 
The reader is free to believe him or not, as he was often by 
punning led to false etymologies. His point is that this kind of 
education is altogether external in character. 



124 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

to those principles from which all actions arise. ^ Thus 
it becomes apparent that there is very much to be done 
in a really worthy education. In private education, 
however, it usually happens that the fourth and most 
important point is but seldom observed, for children are, 
for the most part, reared in such a manner that their 
moralization is confided to the pastor. And yet how 
infinitely important is it that children learn to abhor 
vice while they are young, not merely on the ground 
that God has forbidden it, but because it is in itself 
abominable ! ^ Otherwise they will very easily fall into 
the way of thinking that it could always be practised, and 
would be permitted if only God had not forbidden it, 
and that, therefore, God can easily make an exception for 
once. God is the holiest Being ; He wills only that which 
is good, and commands that we practise virtue for its own 
inherent worth, and not merely because He demands it. 
We live in the epoch of disciplining, culturing, and 
civilizing, but we are still a long way off from the epoch 
of moralizing.^ Under the existing condi- 

Moral " , 

Education tious of society, it can be said that the for- 
lacking. tuucs of the state grow with the distress of 

men. And it is yet a question whether we would not 



^ Particularly those moral principles the search for which con- 
stituted Kant's great quest in his technical labors. To Kant, 
' ' thinking' ' was something directly opposite to mechanical action. 
(See Sections 72, 103, and Selection XII.) 

' Cf. Sections 77, 105. 

'In the Reflections on Anthropology, p. 216, Kant says, "the 
pedagogical concepts of morals and religion are yet in their infancy." 
(Quoted from Vogt, p. 68.) 



INTRODUCTION 125 

be happier in the savage state, where all our culture 
would find no place, than we are in our present condi- 
tion.^ For how can we make man happy unless we 
make him wise and moral ? Otherwise the quantity of 
evil is not diminished. 

20. We must have experimental schools before we can 
establish normal schools. Education and instruction must 
not be merely mechanical, but must rest 

Experiments 

upon principles. Yet they are not to be Necessary in 
affairs of mere reasoning, but they must also Education. 
in a certain manner be a mechanism. In Austria there 
have been, for the most part, only normal schools which 
were established according to a plan against which 
much was said, with good reason ; and especially were 
they reproached with being blind mechanisms.^ All 

* In discussing, in 1754, the question of the aging of the earth 
from a physical point of view, Kant contrasts the cold-blooded 
character of his century with the enthusiasm of ancient peoples 
for ' ' large things, ' ' expressing the following doubt : * * Then when 
I think how great an influence the art of government, instruction, 
and example have upon mental and moral life, I doubt whether 
such ambiguous characteristics are proofs of a real change in na- 
ture." — Hartenstein, i. p. 206. 

In 1786, in the essay on Probable Beginnings of Human History 
(Hartenstein, iv. p. 321), Kant reaches the opinion that the step out 
of the raw condition of the life of instinct was a loss for the in- 
dividual but a gain for the race. 

^ The first of the normal schools was established in Vienna in 
1771. The plan referred to is that projected by Abbot Felbiger in 
1774. It is also interesting to note that Kant's call for " experi- 
mental schools" was first actually answered by his successor 
Herbart, who founded a * ' pedagogical seminary' ' at Konigsberg. 



126 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

other schools had to be modelled after these normal 
schools, and those who had not been in these schools 
were refused any advancement. Such ordinances indi- 
cate to what extent the government occupies itself in 
this matter, and under such constraint it is impossible 
for any good thing to thrive. 

It is often imagined that educational experiments are 
unnecessary, and that a judgment as to whether a thing 
will be good or not can be reached on rational grounds 
alone. This is a great error, and experience teaches 
that with our experiments there very often appear effects 
entirely different from those which were expected. 
Since it all depends upon experiments, it is clear that no 
one generation can present a complete educational plan. 
The one experimental school which, in a measure, be- 
gan to break the way was the Institute at Dessau.^ In 
spite of the many defects with which one can reproach 
the Institute (defects which are found in all conclusions 
drawn from experiments), we must give it the honor of 
having made experiments continually. It was, in a 
certain way, the only school in which teachers had the 
freedom to work out their own methods and plans, and 
where they were united among themselves as well as 
with all the scholars in Germany. 

^ Kant here speaks of the Institute as having done its work, — in 
the past tense. The Institute closed in 1793, but we need not 
necessarily conclude that this Note dates from that year, since the 
Institute dragged along an existence after its real work had been 
accomplished. Philanthropinism, however, extended widely be- 
yond the Institute in the labors of Salzman (1744-1811) and 
Campe (1746-1818). 



INTRODUCTION 127 

21. Education includes the care which infancy de- 
mands, and schooling.^ The latter is, — 

(a) Negatively, the discipline which merely Division of 
prevents faults. 

(6) Positively, instruction and direction,^ and so far 
forth, belongs to culture. Direction is guidance in the 
execution of that which has been taught. Hence arises 
the difference between a teacher [Informator'] , who 
merely instructs, and a private tutor [Hofmeister'], who 
is also a director. The former educates for the school 
merely, the latter for life. 

22. Education is either public or private. The former 
has to do only with instruction, which can always re- 
main public. The practice of the precepts given to the 
pupils is left to the latter. A complete public educa- 



^ This new division does not repeat the suggestion towards a 
similar division stated in Section 4, but seems to be made in order 
to make emphatic the distinction between ' ' instruction' ' and ' * di- 
rection." Here is also to be found the basis for his distinction 
between private and public education presented in the sections 
following. (Cf. Section 58.) 

''With "direction" compare "cultivation," Section 18c, and 
"pragmatic culture," Section S2b. The present-day distinction 
is made in terms of "theory" and "practice." The distinction 
between "teacher" and "tutor," here introduced to illustrate a 
principle in a division of educational aims and activities, reappears 
in Sections 32, 34. The limits of Kant's pedagogical horizon 
might seem to be the activity of the private or family tutor ; but 
the public school teacher — who is a social and professional creat- 
ure of the nineteenth century — comes in for a fair share of con- 
sideration. (See Sections 20, 81, 88.) 



128 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

tion is that which unites both instruction and moral 

culture. Its aim is the promotion of a good private 

education. A school in which this is found 

Public and 

Private is Called an Educational Institute. There can- 

Education. ^^^ ^^ many such institutes, nor can the num- 
ber of their pupils be large, for they are very costly, and 
their mere establishment requires a great deal of money. 
It is with them as with almshouses and hospitals : the 
necessary buildings, the salaries of the directors, man- 
agers, and attendants, take half of the money appropri- 
ated ; and it is certain that if this money were sent to 
the poor in their homes they would be much better pro- 
vided for. Thus it is very difficult for other than the 
children of the rich to attend such institutes. 

23. The purpose of such public institutes is the 
completion of domestic education. If parents or their 
Private assistants were well educated, the expense 
Education. gf public institutes would not be necessary. 
In these establishments we should make experiments 
and train subjects, and it is thus that a good domestic 
education will result. 

24. Private education is conducted either by the par- 
ents themselves or, if they do not, as frequently hap- 
Farents versus peus, havc the time, capability, or perhaps 
Tutors. gygj^ lY^Q desire to do it, by paid assistants. 
When there are assistants to conduct the education, 
there arises the very difficult situation that the authority 
is divided between the parents and the tutors. Now 
the child is governed by the commands of the tutor, and 



INTRODUCTION 129 

then it must follow parental caprice. In such education 
it is necessary that the parents yield their authority 
entirely to the family tutor. 

25. But how far is private education to be preferred 
to public, or vice versa f In general, it appears that 
public education is more advantageous than pubiic Educa- 
domestic, not only from the view-point of tion Preferable, 
skilfulness, but also as regards the character of a citizen. 
Domestic education not only brings out family faults, 
but also fosters them. 

26. How long should education continue? Until that 
time when nature herself has arranged that the human 
being shall guide himself, — until the develop- Time Limit 
ment of the sexual instinct,— until the youth «^ Education. 
himself can become a father and can educate, — until 
about the sixteenth year.^ After this period auxiliary 

^ Cf. Section 111. In commenting on Rousseau's conception of 
the strife between culture and human nature, Kant observes as an 
illustration of this strife, in his Probable Beginnings of Human 
History (1786), Hartenstein, iv. pp. 322, 323, foot-note : 

"The sixteenth or seventeenth year has been determined by 
nature as the epoch of maturity, — i.e., of the impulse as well as 
of the ability to beget his kind ; an age in which the youth, in a 
crude state of nature, literally becomes a man, for he is then able 
to support himself, to beget his kind, and to support it together 
with his wife. The simplicity of his needs renders this easy for 
him. But under civilized conditions many means of earning are 
necessary, skill as well as favorable circumstances, so that this 
epoch is postponed, on the average, at least ten years. Nature has 
not, however, changed her period of maturity to make it agree 
with the progress of social refinement, but she rather follows ob- 

9 



130 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

means of culture can be used and a secret discipline 
may be practised, but there can be no further education, 
properly speaking. 

27. The first epoch in the pupil's life is that in which 
he must show submissiveness and positive obedience ; 
Two Epochs the second is that in which he is permitted 
In Schooling, ^q make use of his powers of reflection and 
of his freedom, but under laws. In the former there 
obtains a mechanical, in the latter a moral constraint.^ 

stinately her law which she has laid upon the preservation of the 
human species as animal species. From this results an unavoid- 
able rupture from the aims of nature by morals, and from morals 
by the aims of nature ; for the natural man is at a certain age 
already a man, while the citizen (who has not, however, ceased to 
be a natural man) is still only a youth, yes, only a child ; for it is 
quite proper so to designate him who, on account of his age (in 
the civil condition), cannot support himself, much less his kind, 
although he has the impulse and the abihty, consequently the call 
of nature, to beget it. Nature has certainly not implanted in- 
stincts and powers in living creatures in order that they should be 
fought and suppressed. Hence the disposition was not at all 
placed upon the civilized condition, but merely upon the preserva- 
tion of the human species as animal species, and the civihzed 
condition is hence in inevitable conflict with the latter, — a conflict 
which could be avoided only through a perfect civil constitution (the 
highest aim of culture), since now the interim is usually filled with 
vices and the manifold human misery which results from them." 

Kant reverts to this great gap between the demands of nature 
and of the state, and points out the same difficulties in moraliza- 
tion, using almost the same language, in the Anthropology, etc., 
vii. p. 650. 

^ As to the earlier epoch, Kant remarks, in Reflections on Anthro- 
pology, ' ' Man must be weakened in order to be tame and later 



INTRODUCTION 131 

28. The submissiveness of the pupil is either positive 
or negative. It is positive when he must do that which he 
is commanded, because he himself cannot Kinds of 
judge, and the mere capacity for imitation constraint, 
still exists in him. It is negative when he must do that 
which others desire, if he wishes others to do things to 
please him. In the first instance he risks being pun- 
ished; in the second, not obtaining what he wishes. 
In the latter instance, although he is able to think, he is 
still dependent upon others for his pleasures. 

29. One of the greatest problems in education is. How 
can subjection to lawful constraint be combined with 
the ability to make use of one's freedom? The Antinomy 
For constraint is necessary. How shall I between con- 

•^ stramt and 

cultivate freedom under conditions of com- Freedom. 

pulsion? I ought to accustom my pupil to tolerate a 
restraint upon his freedom, and at the same time lead 
him to make good use of his freedom. Without this all 
is mere mechanism, and he who is released from edu- 
cation does not know how to make use of his freedom. 
At an early age he must feel the inevitable opposition of 



virtuous. The constraint of education and government makes him 
soft, pliable, and submissive to laws. Later the reason stirs 
itself." (Quoted from Vogt, p. 71.) 

With the chronological divisions of Sections 27-30 compare in 
detail the more ethical and logical divisions of character organiza- 
tion of Sections 80-88. Here the school life of the child is con- 
sidered, while there the life of the child as a citizen of the moral 
world is emphasized. 



132 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

society, in order to learn the difficulty of self-support, 
economy, and acquisition, so as to be independent. 

30. Here the following must be observed : 
(a) The child should be left perfectly free, from earliest 
childhood, in everything (except in such instances Avhere 
he mio^ht injure himself; as, for, example, 

Education & J ? i i r ? 

towards when he reaches for an open knife), unless 

Freedom. ^^^ manner of his freedom interferes with that 

of others ; as, for example, when he screams, or is merry 
in too noisy a way, he discommodes others. 

(6) The child must be shown that he can attain his 
aims only as he permits others to reach theirs ; as, for 
example, he will be granted no pleasure if he does not 
do what others desire, that he must learn, etc. 

(c) It must also be shown to the child that he is under 
such constraint as will lead him to the use of his own 
freedom ; that he is cultivated, so that one day he may 
be free, — that is, not dependent upon the foresight of 
others. This is the child's latest acquisition. For the 
consideration that each must rely upon himself for his 
own sustenance comes to the child very late. They fancy 
it will always be as it is in the parental home ; that food 
and drink will come without any thought on their part. 
Without such treatment, children, and especially those 
of rich parents and princes, become like the inhabitants 
of Tahiti, who remain children their whole life long. 

Here public education has the most evident advantage, 
since in it one learns to measure his powers and the 
limitations which the rights of others impose upon him. 
In this form of education no one has prerogatives, since 



INTRODUCTION 133 

Opposition is felt everywhere, and merit becomes the 
only standard of preferment. This education produces 
the best prototype of the future citizen. 

Here must be considered another difficulty, which 
consists in anticipating the knowledge of sexual rela- 
tions, in order to avert vice before the age of manhood. 
More will be said on this later. ^ 



^ See Sections 110, 111. 



THE TREATISE^ 

31. Pedagogy, or the Science of Education, is either 
physical or practical.^ Physical education includes that 

^ Rink placed the superscription Abhandlung before Section 31, 
which some editors of Kant's Lecture-Notes on Pedagogy have 
stricken out. The question involved in the retention or omission 
of the superscription is : whether Kant had succeeded in making all 
his preliminary distinctions hitherto and now turns to begin the 
systematic exposition of his views on education, or whether any 
division of education Kant makes is really fundamental. I have 
preferred to retain the superscription, without attempting to decide 
the point at issue otherwise than as indicated in the notes to those 
sections in which the divisions of educational activities are made. 
(See Sections 1, 18, 72, et al.) 

^ We have here presented an analysis of the theory of education 
which has its sole basis in the Kantian doctrine of freedom. 
Everything that is related to nature and is constituted by natural 
processes is called "physical," whereas everything connected with 
freedom is called "practical" or "moral." Kant labored hard 
with this cleavage, which is fundamental, and thus, for him, 
eternal in human thought, in the Third Antinomy of the Dialectic 
of the Critique of Pure Reason. It is the battle between freedom 
and causation, both of which are " transcendental ideas." 

This radical distinction could hardly have appear^fd fully fledged 
in Kant's thinking when he began lecturing on peqagogy in 1776, 
being a product of his critical system which was irj the making in 
that decade. It is fairly possible that we have her^ the antithesis 
between nature and freedom, in terms of which Kant sought, 
apparently, to work over the whole of educational theory. It is 
needless to add that the execution of this effort As far from com- 
plete in these Notes. J 
134 ^ 



THE TREATISE 135 

maintenance which man has in common with animals.^ 
Practical, or moral, education is that by which man is to 
be so formed that he can live as a freely The science of 
acting being. (All that which has reference Education, 
to freedom is called "practical.") It is the education 
towards personality, the education of a free being who 
can maintain himself and become a member of society, 
but who can also have an inner worth peculiar to him- 
self. 

32. Hence practical education consists of: 

(a) Scholastic-mechanical culture, which relates to skil- 

fulness, and thus is didactic (the work of the teacher) ; 
(6) Pragmatic culture, which relates to a o f 

prudence (the work of the private tutor) ; Practical 

, Education. 

and 

(c) Moral culture, which relates to good conduct.^ 



^ Cf. Section 2. "Physical" education is also employed in radi- 
cally different senses in Sections 47, 63, and following. In the 
former section the conception is given a wider range, so as to in- 
clude the culture of the soul ; in the latter sections it particularly 
comprehends the effects of a teacher upon a pupil, and to which 
the pupil passively adjusts himself. The rendering given in the 
text follows the reading adopted by Vogt rather than that given by 
Rink, which would read : " Physical education is that which man 
has in common with animals, or maintenance, ' ' and is difficult to 
harmonize with the trend of Kant's views as to the meaning of 
'* physical education." 

* It is difficult to harmonize the inclusion of a and ^> under 
"practical" education here with the later treatment of them under 
the "physical" education of the mind in Sections 58, 63, 68, 
72 ; the intelligence, as well as the body, is regarded as having a 



136 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

Man needs scholastic culture, or instruction, in order 
to become qualified for the attainment of all his ends. 
It gives him a value considered as an individual. But 
through the culture of prudence he is formed for citizen- 
ship ; then he attains a public worth. Then he learns 
not only to use civil society for his purposes, but also to 
conform himself to civil society. Through moral culture 
he finally attains a value with reference to the whole 
human race. 

33. Scholastic education is the very earliest, for all 

prudence presupposes skilfulness. Prudence is the 

ability to turn one's skilfulness to account. 

Relations *' 

between its Moral cducatiou, in so far as it rests upon 
Factors. principles which should be apprehended 

by each one, is the latest; but, in so far as its rests 
on common sense, it must be observed from the begin- 
ning, even along with physical education ; for otherwise 
faults are easily engrafted with which afterwards all 
educational power labors in vain. Skilfulness and 
prudence, however, must correspond to the age of the 
pupil. For a child to be skilled, prudent, good-natured, 
and cunning in a mature way is worth as little as for an 
adult to be childish in his mode of thinking. 

''mechanical," hence a "physical" nature. At the same time 
Kant does not deny that there is a physical preparation for educa- 
tion to freedom, and it may be this which is specifically understood 
in Section 32, as the second paragraph endeavors to present. 
(Cf. Sections 77, 91.) The division in Section 32 is identical with 
b, c, and d of Section 18, though under slightly different terms. 
(See Selection IV.) 



THE TREATISE 137 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION 

34. Although the person who assumes the position of 
a tutor in a family does not have the oversight of the 
children early enough to enable him to super- 
intend their physical education, yet it is very Physical 
useful for him to know all that is necessary Education, 
to observe in education from beginning to end. Even 
though he has, as a tutor, to do with older children only, 
yet it may happen that more children be born into the 
family, and if he conducts himself well he has always a 
right to be the confidant of the parents, and to be con- 
sulted by them in regard to the physical education of 
their children ; and, besides, he is often the only learned 
person in the house. Hence a knowledge of this sub- 
ject is very necessary to a family tutor. 

35. Properly speaking, physical education consists 
only in the care given children either by parents, nurses, 
or attendants.^ The mother's milk is the Physical care: 
food which nature has intended for the Nursing. 
child. That the child imbibes dispositions with it — as 
the adage runs : "You drank that in with your mother's 

^ " Physical" is here used in its narrower sense, and is not com- 
prised under the activities outlined in Section 18. Sections 35-47 
show the influence of Rousseau. 

In his History of the Kantian Philosophy (p. 271) Rosenkranz 
derisively speaks of Kant's "stepmotherly solicitousness" for 
suckling and rocking. This derision is rather unwarranted, first, 
in view of the general interest in those topics created by Rousseau ; 
second, in view of Kant's personal interest in the care of the body 



138 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

milk" — is a mere prejudice. It is most salutary to 
both if the mother suckles her child. There may, how- 
ever, be exceptional instances owing to sickly conditions. 
It was formerly believed that the first milk which the 
mother has after the child is born, and which is whey- 
ish, is injurious to the infant and must be gotten rid of 
before the child could be given suck. It was Rousseau 
who first called ^ the attention of physicians to the ques- 
tion as to whether this first milk might not be good for 
the child, since nature has arranged nothing aimlessly. 
And, in truth, it has been found that this milk is highly 
beneficial to infants, and is the best remover of the 
ordure in newly-born babes which doctors call meconium. 

36. It has also been inquired whether the child cannot 

be nourished equally as well on animal's milk. Human 

milk is very different from that of animals. 

Milk the *' 

Proper Food The milk of all grass- and vegetable-eating 
for Infants. auimals readily curdles upon the addition of 
an acid, as, for example, vinous acid, lemon acid, or par- 
ticularly the acid which is called rennet and is found in a 
calf s stomach ; ordinarily human milk does not curdle. 
If, however, mothers or wet-nurses partake of only vege- 
table food for several days at a time, their milk curdles 

because of his own physical weakness ; and, finally, in view of the 
paramount importance of those subjects at the proper time of 
infancy. Kant, furthermore, implies here as elsewhere in these 
Lecture-Notes that education is a subject as wide as all human 
interests and needs : nothing ''human" can be indifferent to it. 

* In his Emile. (See Miss Worthington's translation of Steeg's 
Extracts, Boston, 1894, p. 18.) 



THE TREATISE 139 

like cow's milk, etc. ; but if they then eat meat for a 
certain time, the milk attains its former quality. From 
this it has been concluded that it is best, and especially 
so for the child, for mothers or nurses to eat meat during 
the nursing period. Any milk vomited by infants is 
found to be curdled. The acidity of the child's stomach 
is the chief agent which causes the curdling of milk; 
human milk can be curdled in no other manner. Then 
how much worse it would be if the child were given 
milk which curdles of its own accord ! That everything 
does not depend upon this we see in other nations. 
The Tunguses,^ for example, subsist on meat almost 
entirely, and are strong, healthy people. Such people, 
however, are short-lived ; and a large, grown youth, 
who does not appear to be light in weight, can be lifted 
from the ground with little effort. The Swedes, on 
the other hand, and especially the nations in India, eat 
almost no meat, and yet they are on the whole very 
well developed. Thus it appears that it depends entirely 
on the good condition of the nurse, and that that food 
is the best which keeps her healthy. 

37. After the child is weaned there is the question 
as to what shall be his food. For some time trials have 
been made with all sorts of gruels. But it ^^^qj. Foods 
is not good to nourish the child from the for children, 
beginning with such foods. Especial care must be taken 
not to give children anything pungent, such as wine, 
spice, salt, etc. But it is very singular that they have 

* A tribe in Northeastern Siberia. 



140 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

such a great desire for all these things. The cause is 
this, that poignant foods give an agreeable stimulus 
and animation to their as yet blunt sensations. Russian 
children partake freely of the brandy of which their 
mothers are very fond ; and the Russians are strong, 
healthy people. To be sure, those who can endure this 
must possess good physical constitutions ; yet many 
perish thus who might otherwise have lived. Such a 
premature stimulus of the nerves produces many dis- 
orders. There must even be a careful watch against too 
warm foods and drinks for children ; for these, too, cause 
weakness. 

38. Moreover, children should not be kept too warm, 
as their blood is in itself much warmer than that of 
Care of the adults. The temperature of children's blood 
Body. is 110<^ Fahrenheit, that of adults only 96°.^ 

The child is stifled in the warmth to which parents are 
accustomed. A cool dwelling makes men strong, any- 
how. It is not good for adults, even, to dress and to 
cover themselves too warmly and to become accustomed 
to too hot drinks. Thus a cool and hard couch is best 
adapted to the child. Cold baths are also good. Chil- 
dren's hunger must not be stimulated, but be rather 
only the natural consequence of activity and occupation. 
In the mean time, the child must not be allowed to be- 
come accustomed to anything to such an extent that he 



^ This error may be due to Kant or to Rink ; for tiie average 
temperature of the infant, as now determined, is only 99° Fahren- 
heit, and of the adult 98.6° Fahrenheit. 



THE TREATISE 141 

come to regard it as a necessity. Even the morally 
good must not be presented to him under the form of 
habit. 

39. Swaddling is not found among barbarians. The 
savage nations in America, for example, place their 
young children in holes dug in the earth, in swaddiing 
which is strewn the dust of decayed trees in condemned. 
order that the urine and uncleanness may be absorbed and 
the children may have a dry place, and cover them with 
leaves ; further than this, fhey allow them the free use of 
their limbs. It is only for our own convenience that we 
swaddle children like mummies, in order that we may 
be freed from giving them constant attention lest they 
become misshapen ; and yet that is just what often 
happens as a result of swaddling. It is very distressing 
to children, and they fall into a sort of despair, since 
they cannot use their limbs at all. Then we think that 
merely speaking to them will quiet their cries. Let an 
adult be swaddled, and then see whether he, too, will 
not cry out and fall into distress and despair ! 

It must in general be observed that the earliest edu- 
cation should be purely negative, — that is, that one should 
not add anything to the precautions which nature has 
taken; that nature itself be not interfered with. If 
any tampering with nature is to be permitted in educa- 
tion, it is only in the process of physical hardening. 
This is another reason why swaddling should be aban- 
doned. If, indeed, one wishes to exercise a little pre- 
caution, the most appropriate thing is a kind of box, 
covered with straps, which is used by Italians, and by 



142 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

them called arcuccio. The child is left in this box all 
the time, and is even given suck while lying in it. 
Thus there is prevented any possibility of the mother 
smothering the child, should she fall asleep while nursing 
at night. Many of our children lose their lives in this 
manner. This precaution is preferable to swaddling- 
clothes, since the children have more freedom and all 
deformation is prevented; the effect of swaddling is 
often to deform children. 

40. Another custom in early education is the use of 
the cradle. The simplest kind is that used by some 
The Cradle peasants : the cradle is suspended by cords 
condemned. fj.Q]^ g^ beam, and requires only a push to 
keep it swinging back and forth of its own accord. The 
cradle, however, is of no value whatsoever, for the 
swinging is injurious to the child. It is noticeable even 
in grown persons that swinging produces nausea and 
vertigo. The aim is to lull the child in this way so that 
he will not cry. Crying, however, is beneficial to chil- 
dren. As soon as they are delivered from the womb, 
where they had no air, they take their first breath. The 
course of the blood thus changed produces painful sensa- 
tions.^ But crying is a great aid in developing the inter- 

^ In his Anthropology, etc. (Hartenstein, vii. p. 589), Kant finds 
a cause other than physiological for this phenomenon, in which 
he seems to have been greatly interested. The infant ''regards his 
inability to make use of his limbs as restraint, and so immediately 
announces his claim to freedom (of which no other animal has any 
idea).'' See the longer note, p. 652, where the first cry is further 
described as being one of "indignation and irritated anger," not 



THE TREATISE 143 

nal constitutional parts and canals of the child's body. 
The custom of nurses and mothers to hurry to a crying 
child and to sing to him, etc., is very injurious. This is 
usually the first spoiling of the child ; for, if he sees that 
he obtains everything by crying for it, he cries all the 
more. 

41. Leading-strings and go-carts are usually employed 
to teach the child to walk. It is very remarkable that 
children are taught how to walk, just as 
though man would never have learned it strings and 
without being taught. Leading-strings are Go-carts 

^ ^ o c condemned. 

very injurious. A certain author once com- 
plained of being narrow-chested, which he attributed 
entirely to leading-strings. When the child reaches for 
everything, and picks up everything from the floor, the 
leading-strings about the chest support the weight of its 
body. As the bones are very soft at this period, the 
chest is pressed flat, and later in life retains this shape. 
Children do not learn to walk with the same steadiness 
by the use of such means as when they learn it by their 
own efforts. It is best to allow them to creep about 
on the floor until they begin to walk of their own accord. 



of "pain, but vexation, probably because he wishes to move his 
limbs and immediately feels his inability to do so as a bondage 
whereby he is robbed of his freedom." Kant proceeds to deal 
further with this physiological phenomenon of ' ' the first cry' ' as a 
datum from which to speculate as to its meaning and utility in 
preserving the species in an evolutional scale, whose goal seems 
to be "social cultivation" on the basis of reason, of which there 
must have been an earlier germ. 



144 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

As a precaution, the floor can be provided with a thick 
covering; thus the children cannot injure themselves 
with splinters nor by falling. 

It is usually said that children fall very heavily. Aside 
from the fact that children cannot fall heavily, it does 
them no harm if they do fall now and then. They thus 
learn all the better how to maintain an equipoise, and 
how to turn themselves so that the fall will not injure 
them. The child is often made to wear the so-called 
Butzmidze, — a kind of cap which projects so far forward 
as to prevent him from falling on his face. But that is 
a negative education where artificial instruments are 
employed, replacing the natural means which the child 
possesses. In this case the hands are the natural in- 
struments which the child extends when falling. The 
more artificial instruments are employed the more does 
man become dependent upon them. 

42. It is much better, anyway, if fewer instruments 
be used in the beginning, and the children permitted to 
learn more by themselves ; then they learn 
as early as many things much more thoroughly. It is 
Possible. quite possible, for example, that the child 

would learn to write by himself. For some one dis- 
covered it at first ; nor is the discovery such a very great 
one. It would suffice, for example, to say to a child 
who asks for bread, ''Can you draw a picture of it?" 
Then the child would draw an oval figure. Now, one 
would need only to ask whether that were to represent 
a loaf of bread or a stone, and he would attempt there- 
upon to make the letter B, etc. ; and in this manner the 



THE TREATISE 145 

child would gradually discover his own A-B-C's, which 
he would afterwards exchange for other signs/ 

43. There are some children who come into the world 
with certain defects. Are there not means for improving 
these faulty, misshapen forms ? It is proved 

•^' ^ ^ Corrective 

by the researches of a great many well- instruments 
informed authors that corsets are not helpful condemned. 
here, but serve only to aggravate the evil by hindering 
the circulation of the blood and the humors, as well as 
the necessary development of the external and internal 
parts of the body. When the child is left free he at 
least exercises his body ; but the individual who wears 
a corset is much weaker when he lays it aside than one 
who has never put it on. It can possibly be helpful to 
those who are born distorted if a greater weight be 
placed on the side where the muscles are stronger. But 
this also is very dangerous, for who is able to establish 
an equilibrium ? The best thing is for the child to ex- 
ercise himself, and to assume a position, though it does 
become painful to him ; for no machine is of any value 
here. 



^ Great men are only too easily and often intentionally misun- 
derstood. This is especially true of Kant. And that is why I 
remark here only that he by no means intends that each child shall 
invent his own alphabet ; but he merely means thus to indicate 
how children actually and, indeed, analytically proceed in reading 
and writing without being or becoming conscious of it themselves, 
even as they grow older, and how, under certain circumstances, 
they would proceed. ... [A note by Rink.] 

10 



146 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

44. All similar artificial contrivances are of all the 
greater detriment in that they run directly counter to the 
Nature to be ^^d that nature purposes in organized and 
followed. rational beings, according to which they 
must retain their freedom so as to learn to use their 
powers. It is the duty of education to prevent children 
from becoming weak. Hardening is the opposite of 
softening. Too much is ventured if one tries to ac- 
custom children to everything. The education of the 
Russians goes very far on this point. An incredible 
number of children die because of this. 

Habit is a pleasure or action which has become a 
necessity through frequent repetition of that pleasure or 
that action. There is nothing to which children accus- 
tom themselves more easily, and therefore there is 
nothing of which less must be given them than piquant 
things ; for example, tobacco, brandy, and warm drinks. 
Afterwards it is very difficult to disaccustom one's self 
from them ; and at first the attempt to do so occasions 
distress, since a change in the functions of our body has 
been introduced by the repeated indulgence. 

The more habits a man has the less is he free and in- 
dependent. It is the same with man as with all other 
animals. He always retains a certain inclination for 
that to which he was early accustomed. The child must 
be prevented from habituating himself to anything, and 
he must not be allowed to form any habits. 

45. Many parents wish to accustom their children to 
everything. This is of no value. For human nature in 
general, and in a measure that of individuals, does not 



THE TREATISE 147 

accustom itself to everything, and many children always 
remain in apprenticeship. Parents wish, for example, 
that children shall be able to go to sleep and The Doctrine 
to arise at all times, or that they eat at will. ^^ ^o Habits. 
But, in order to endure this, a particular regimen is 
necessary, — a regimen which strengthens the body and 
repairs the injuries done by this system. We find in 
nature many examples of periodicity. The animals have 
their definite time for sleep. The human being should 
also accustom himself to sleep certain hours, in order 
that his body be not deranged in its functions. As for 
the other item, which is, that children shall be able to 
eat at all times, it is not possible to cite the animals as 
examples ; for, as the food taken by herbivorous ani- 
mals, for example, is but slightly nourishing, eating be- 
comes their ordinary occupation. But it is very salutary 
to man if he ahvays eats at a certain hour. And many 
parents wish that their children shall be able to endure 
great cold, bad odors, all sorts of noises, etc. This is 
not necessary in the least ; the one thing is this, that they 
acquire no habits. To this end it is very expedient to 
place children in various circumstances.^ 

46. A hard bed is much better for the health than a soft 
one. A severe education has great value in strengthening 
the body. But by severe education we un- physical 

derstand simply the prevention of all indo- Hardening. 
lent ease. There is no lack of remarkable examples for 

^ This inconsistent return to the practice condemned at tlie be- 
ginning of the section must simply be left standing, unless one 
wishes to question the accuracy of Rink's editing. 



148 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

the confirmation of this assertion, but unfortunately they 
are not heeded, or, to be more exact, people will not 
heed them. 

47.^ In regard to that which concerns the culture of 
the mind (which can also in a certain sense be called 
The Negative physical),^ it is of chicf importance to 
Aspect of observe that discipline be not lavish, but 

Physical ^ ' 

Education. that the child always feel his freedom, in 
such a manner, however, that he does not hinder the 
freedom of others ; thus he must be accustomed to 
meet with resistance. Many parents deny their children 
everything, in order to exercise their patience, and ac- 
cordingly demand more patience of their children than 
they themselves possess. This is cruel. Give the child 

^ The question of arranging Kant's Lecture-Notes has been 
troublesome to the editors of them, most of whom complain of 
the unsatisfactory editing of the loose and fragmentary material by 
Rink. Vogt has, perhaps, been the most successful in effecting a 
rearrangement of the sections, which clings to the topical divisions 
of the Notes. Thus, at this point. Rink scattered the discussions 
on "discipline." But Kant's conception of discipline (Sections 
3, 5) is definite enough to accept Vogt's order, followed in the 
translation, as the more acceptable one. Rink placed Sections 48 
and 51 between 40 and 41 ; Sections 52-56 between 76 and 77 ; 
and Sections 47, 49, 50 were grouped in this place. 

* "Physical" is here used in the broader sense. (Cf. Sections 
31, note 2, 63, 72.) It includes the psychical nature as opposed 
to the practical, or the psychical in so far as it is a part of nature. 
It is specifically "discipline," which Kant here projects as the first 
step in education. Herbart's division of "government" follows 
this conception of Kant, and has almost the identical aim of sub- 
duing instinctive wildness. 



THE TREATISE 149 

sufficient for his needs, and then say to him, " You have 
enough." But it is absolutely necessary that this be 
irrevocable. Pay no attention to the cries of children, 
and do not yield to them when they wish to obtain 
anything by this means ; but that which they request in 
a friendly manner give them, if it is for their good. 
Thus the child will form the habit of being frank ; and, 
since he is not troublesome to any one by crying, every 
one in turn will be friendly to him. Providence truly 
appears to have given children cheerful manners so as 
to beguile people. Nothing is more injurious than a 
vexing and slavish discipline which is administered in 
the hope of breaking stubbornness. 

48. Children do not have perfect vision during the first 
three ^ months. They have the sensations of light, but 
cannot distinguish one object from another. Early crying 
This can easily be demonstrated : hold be- ^^^ Discipline. 
fore them some glittering object, and they do not follow 
it with their eyes. With the power of vision there de- 
velops the ability to laugh and to cry. When the child 
is in this condition, he crie^ with reflection, be it as obscure 
as it may. He thinks that he is suffering some positive 
injury. Rousseau says, that if a six-months'-old child 
be struck on the hand, it cries just as if a firebrand had 
fallen on its hand. Here the conception of offence is 
actually present. Parents speak ordinarily a great deal 
about breaking the will of children. Their will may be 
broken if it has not already been spoiled. The first 

^ Vogt's edition reads "eight," — evidently a misprint. 



150 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

step towards spoiling children is to yield to their des- 
potic will, and to allow them to extort everything by 
crying. It is an extremely difficult matter to correct 
this later, and the attempt seldom proves successful.^ 
The child can be compelled to keep quiet, but he feeds 
on his spleen and fosters his internal fury. By this 
means the child is habituated to pretence and to con- 
cealed emotions. It is very strange, for example, that 
parents should desire children to kiss their hands after 
having been punished with the rod. Children thus 
become trained to dissimulation and falsehood ; for the 
rod is not exactly a beautiful present, for which one 
may expect thanks, and one can easily imagine with 
what sort of a heart the child will kiss the hand that 
punishes him. 

49. One often says to children, " Fie ! Aren't you 

ashamed of yourself? What a naughty thing to do !" 

etc. Such things, however, should not ap- 

Misuse of 

Shame pear in early education. The child as yet 

in Discipline, j^^^ ^^ ^^^^^^ ^^ ^^^^^ ^^^ propriety. He 

has no need to be ashamed, and he is only intimidated 
by being spoken to in such a manner. He becomes em- 
barrassed when others look at him, and likes to hide 
from them. As a result there develop reserve and detri- 
mental dissimulation. He does not venture to ask for 
anything, and yet he ought to feel free to ask for every- 
thing ; he conceals his feelings and always appears to be 

^ Cf. Horstig, Soil man die Kinder schreien lassen f (Shall we let 
children cry?) Gotha, 1789. [A note by Kant.] 



THE TREATISE 151 

otherwise than he is, instead of saying everything frankly. 
Instead of always being with his parents, he shuns them, 
and throws himself into the arms of the more com- 
placent domestics. 

50. Trifling and continual caressing are no better 
than such a vexing education. This strengthens the 
child in his own will and makes him false ; ^^.^g ^^ 
and, since it reveals to him a weakness in Pampering. 
his parents, it robs them of the reverence he should 
necessarily have for them. But, if he is educated in 
such a manner that he is unable to obtain anything by 
crying, he will be free without being bold, and unas- 
suming without being timid. Dreist ("bold") should be 
drdust^ since it is derived from drduen^ from drohen, 
which means "to menace."^ An overbearing (drdust) 
person is unendurable. Many men have such bold faces 
that one constantly fears an incivility from them ; on 
the other hand, there are those in whom it can be seen 
at once that they are incapable of saying a coarse thing 
to any one. A frank appearance is always possible, but 
a certain goodness should go along with it. People 
often say of a distinguished man that he looks like a 
king. But this look is nothing more than a peculiar 
bold expression which he has always worn from his 
youth because no one then opposed him. 

51. It can certainly be said with truth that the chil- 
dren of common people are much more spoiled than 

^ See Section 19, note 2, p. 123. 



152 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

the children of the aristocratic class ; for the common 

people play with their children like monkeys. They 

sin^ to them, hu^ and kiss them, and dance 

The Danger of ^ ' o i 

Fostering with them. They imagine that they benefit a 

Whims. ^j^.j^ .|.^ ^g g^^j^ ^g Y^Q cries, they hurry and 

play with him, etc. But this makes him cry only so 
much the more. If, on the contrary, his cries are not 
heeded, they finally cease ; for no creature readily con- 
tinues in a fruitless labor. If children are accustomed 
to see all their caprices satisfied, the subsequent break- 
ing of the will comes too late. If they are simply per- 
mitted to cry, they will become tired of it themselves. 
Concession to all their fancies in early youth ruins their 
heart and manners. 

The infant, to be sure, has no conception of morality ; 
but his natural disposition is spoiled in such a way that 
afterwards very hard punishment is necessary in order 
to repair the evil.^ When later it is desired to break 
children of the habit of expecting all their whims to be 
satisfied, they express in their screams as great a rage 
as that of which adults only are capable, and which is 
without effect merely because they lack the power 
to put it into activity. For so long a time they have 
needed only to cry in order to obtain what they 
wished, that now they rule despotically. When this 
domination ceases, they are quite naturally fretful. 
When men have been in possession of power for a 
long time, they find it very difficult to relinquish it all 
at once. 

1 See Section 102. 



THE TREATISE 153 

52. The culture of the feeling of pleasure or of pain 
properly belongs here.^ This should be negative ; but 
the feeling must not be spoiled by too Education of 
much tenderness. An inclination for indo- Feeling, 

lent ease is worse for man than all the evils of life. It 
is therefore extremely important that children should 
learn to work. If they are not already effeminated by 
fondling, children really love amusements which are 
combined with fatiguing exertions and occupations which 
demand strength on their part. One should not make 
children fastidious in their enjoyments, nor allow them 
to choose their pleasures by themselves. Mothers 
usually spoil their children in this particular, and pamper 
them generally. Still, it is noticeable that children, es- 
pecially the sons, love their father more than their 
mother. This may be due to the fact that mothers do 
not permit them to spring about, run around, etc., for 
fear that they might be injured. The father, on the 
contrary, who scolds and even whips them when they 
have been unruly, takes them now and then into the 
fields and there lets them run around, play, and be 
boyishly frolicsome. 



^ This ' ' feeling' ' represents one of the three divisions of the 
mental faculties — the others being understanding and desire — 
which Kant's authority sanctioned for almost a century as the 
starting-point of psychological science. This feeling forms the 
basis of his Critique of Judgment, which treats of the aesthetic 
factors of experience, and also forms the key-stone to the whole 
system of Criticism, It is surprisingly strange that in these Lecture- 
Notes there appear only two references to the cultivation of the 
aesthetic "powers," — viz., Sections 52, 70. (See Selection V.) 



154 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

53. We think we discipline the patience of children 
by compelling them to wait a long time for anything. 
Training in 'This is, however, hardly necessary. But 
Patience. they have need of patience in sickness, etc. 
Patience is twofold : it consists either in abandoning all 
hope or in taking new courage. The first kind of pa- 
tience is not necessary when one desires only that which 
is possible ; the second kind may always be had if one 
desires only what is right. In sickness, hopelessness 
aggravates just as much as courage tends to ameliorate. 
He who is capable of understanding this in its relation 
to his physical or moral condition does not abandon 
hope. 

54. The will of children should not be broken, as 
stated above, but merely directed in such a manner 

that it will afterwards yield to natural hin- 
1 - rea mg. ^^.^^^^g^ q£ (>ourse, at first the child must 

blindly obey. It is unnatural that the child should com- 
mand by his cries, and the strong obey the weak. One 
should, therefore, never yield to the cries of children in 
their first years, and never allow them to obtain what 
they wish by this means. Parents usually deceive them- 
selves in this, and later think to make amends by deny- 
ing children everything for which they ask. But this is 
absurd, — to deny them without reason that which they 
expect from the kindness of their parents, merely to 
oppose them and to let them, the weaker ones, feel the 
superior force of their parents. 

55. Children are hadJy educated if their wills are 
gratified, and quite falsely educated if one acts directly 



THE TREATISE 155 

contrary to their wills and their desires. The former 
ordinarily happens so long as they are the playthings of 
parents, especially at the time when they Negative wm- 
begin to talk. This indulgence works great training. 

harm for the entire life. It is true that by opposing 
the wills of children we prevent them from exhibiting 
their ill-humor, — that we must do, — but they rage all 
the more inwardly. They have not yet learned how 
to conduct themselves. The rule which should be ob- 
served with children from their earliest years is this : 
go to their assistance if you believe they are crying 
because something is really hurting them, but let them 
cry if they are doing it merely out of ill-humor. And 
a similar course must later constantly be followed. 
The opposition which the child meets with in this 
case is quite natural and peculiarly negative, since he 
is simply not yielded to. Many children, on the con- 
trary, receive everything they desire from their parents 
merely by recourse to entreaties. If they are per- 
mitted to obtain everything by crying, they become ill- 
natured ; but if by entreaties, they become gentle. If, 
therefore, there is no important reason for a contrary 
course, the child's wishes should be granted. But if 
one has reasons for not granting them, he must not al- 
low himself to be moved by repeated entreaties. Every 
refusal must be irrevocable. The result will be that 
the necessity for frequent refusals will be done away 
with. 

56. Let us suppose — what can be conceded only 
very seldom — that the child naturally tends to be stub- 



156 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

born ; then it is best not to do anything to please him 
if he does nothing to please us. Will-break- 

Stubbornness. . i, . ,. -it 

mg results in creating a servile disposition ; 
natural resistance, on the contrary, produces docility. 

57. All this is still a part of negative culture ; for 

many of the weaknesses of man result, not from his 

having been taught nothing, but from the 

Dangers of ° ^ ^' 

False false impressious which he has received. 

Impressions. ^j^^g^ fQj. example, nurses inculcate upon 
children a fear of spiders, toads, etc. Children would 
be just as apt to reach out for spiders as they do for 
other things. But since nurses, as soon as they see a 
spider, show their terror by their looks, this fright is com- 
municated to the child through a sort of sympathy. 
Many retain this fear throughout their whole life and are 
always childish in this respect. For, while spiders are 
without doubt dangerous to flies, their sting being poi- 
sonous to them, they do not harm human beings. And 
a toad, likewise, is as harmless as a green frog or any 
other animal.^ 

^ Since at this point in the JVotes the attention seems to be turned 
from infancy and to be directed more to the features of childhood 
and youth, the following selection on the development of the child 
may be in place here. In the opening section of the Anthropol- 
ogy, etc., which treats of " the consciousness of one's self," Kant 
observes, — 

"It is remarkable that the child who can talk very well begins 
rather late to speak in the first person (perhaps a year later), but 
has always spoken of himself in the third person (Charles wants to 
eat, to go, etc.), and that something seems to dawn upon him 
when he begins to speak with ' V ; he never returns to the 



THE TREATISE 157 

58. The positive aspect of physical education is cul- 
ture.^ In this respect man is different from the animal. 
It consists principally in the exercise of his mental facul- 
ties. That is why parents should give their children 

earlier form of speech. Formerly he merely felt himself, now he 
thinks himself. The explanation of this phenomenon may be dif- 
ficult for the anthropologists. 

"That a child neither weeps nor smiles before he is three 
months old, as has been observed, seems to rest upon the develop- 
ment of certain ideas of offence and injustice which hint at 
reason. [See Section 48.] That in this period he begins to follow 
with his eyes any brilliant objects that may be held up before 
him is the crude beginning of the progress of perceptions (appre- 
hension of the idea of sensation) which is later extended to knowl- 
edge of the objects of the senses, — i.e., of experience. 

"That, further, when he tries to talk, his mutilation of words 
seems so adorable to mothers and nurses, and makes them inclined 
to hug and kiss him all the time, and to make him a little autocrat 
by fulfilling his every wish : this lovableness of the child during 
his development into manhood must be credited partly to his inno- 
cence and the frankness of all his as yet faulty expressions, in 
which there is no concealment and nothing malicious, but also in 
part to the nurse's natural inclination to be kind to a creature 
who engagingly resigns himself to her authority, for he is given a 
play-time, the happiest of all, in which the educator again enjoys 
himself by making himself a child once more. 

"The child's memory of his early years does not, however, 
reach so far back, for this was not the time of experiences, but 
merely of scattered perceptions which had not as yet been united 
under the concept of an object." — Hartenstein, vii. pp. 437, 438. 

^ Kant places "culture" in strong contrast with " moralization ;" 
that has many ends, this has only one end, — viz., the selection of 
the good. (Cf. Sections 1, note, and 21.) 

Sections 58-76 deal with "intellectual education," which 
ought to be inserted here as a superscription. 



158 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

every opportunity for such exercise. The first and prin- 
cipal rule here is : all instruments shall be dispensed 
The Positive with as far as possible.^ Therefore, lead- 
physicaf iug-striugs and go-carts should never be 

Education. uscd, and the child should be permitted to 
creep until he learns to walk by himself, for then he will 
walk much more steadily. Instruments, in fact, only 
ruin natural ability. Thus, we use a string to measure 
a given distance, but it can be done just as well by the 
eye ; we use a clock in order to tell the time, but it is 
necessary only to note the position of the sun ; we use 
a compass in order to know the directions when we are 
in a forest, but it is possible to know this by the position 
of the sun during the day and of the stars by night. 
It might even be said : instead of using a boat to go on 
the water, one can swim. The illustrious Franklin^ 
marvelled that every one did not learn to swim, since it 
is so agreeable and useful. He even indicates an easy 
way by which one can learn it by himself. Let an egg 
drop into a brook where the learner's head is just out 
of the water when he is standing on the ground ; now 
attempt to reach the egg. In bending over, the feet are 
raised and the head is laid back in the nape of the neck, 
so that the water does not enter the mouth, and thus 
the learner has exactly the position which is necessary 
for swimming. The essential thing is the cultivation of 

^ This rule may be regarded as an excellent summary of the 
Emile. 

' Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), the printer, the statesman, 
the scientist, and the great American exemplar of wisdom and 
common sense, as found in his Poor Bichard's Almanac. 



THE TREATISE 159 

natural ability. Mere instruction is often sufficient, or 
the child himself is often inventive enough and makes 
his own instruments. 

69. That which must be observed in physical educa- 
tion, consequently in that which concerns the body,^ 
has reference either to the use of voluntary Movement and 
movement or to the use of the organs of the senses, 
sense. The important thing in the case of voluntary 
movement is that the child always help himself. For 
this he needs strength, skilfulness, agility, confidence. 
For example, one should be able to go over narrow 
bridges, walk along precipitous heights where one looks 
down into a deep abyss, or walk on an unstable support. 
When a man is not able to do such things, he is not 
completely what he might be. Since the Fhilanthro- 
pinum of Dessau has set the example, many experi- 
ments of this sort have been made with the children in 
other institutes. One is astonished when he reads how 
the Swiss accustom themselves from their infancy to 
climb the mountains, and of the agility they possess in 
walking on the narrowest foot-paths with complete 
safety, and in leaping chasms over which their visual 

* This phrase is the exact rendering of the text, which brings 
confusion into Kant's conception of "physical education," as ex- 
pressed in Section 31 and elsewhere. That which is implied by 
the phrase — namely, that physical education is identical with 
bodily care — is excluded from the prevailing conception of ed- 
ucation in the suggestions presented in Section 34 and following. 
The phrase, then, should have specified this portion of physical edu- 
cation as that which is connected naturally with mental activity. 



160 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

judgment tells them they will pass in safety. Most 
men, however, fear even an imaginary fall, and this fear 
paralyzes their limbs in such a manner that it would be 
really dangerous for them to make any such attempt. 
This fear ordinarily grows with age, and is usually found 
among those who are engaged in much brain work. 

Such experiments with children are really not very 
dangerous ; for they have, in proportion to their 
strength, far less Aveight and do not fall as heavily. 
Moreover, their bones are not as brittle and fragile as 
they grow to be later. Children try their own strength 
themselves. Thus, for example, they are often seen 
climbing without any apparent purpose. Running is a 
healthy movement and strengthens the body. Leaping, 
lifting, carrying, hurling, throwing at a mark, wrestling, 
racing, and all such exercises are excellent. Dancing, 
in so far as it is technical, seems to be less suitable for 
young children. 

60. Practice in long-distance throwing and in hitting 
targets also results in training the senses, especially that 
Training the ^f visual perception of distance. Playing 
Senses. j^^jj jg Q^ie of the bcst sports for children, 

since it involves running, which is very healthful. In 
general, those plays are the best which, along with the 
skilfulness they develop, also train the senses ; for ex- 
ample, those which exercise the eye to judge distance, 
size, and proportion accurately, or to find the cardinal 
points of any place when one must rely upon the sun, etc.^ 

* See Emile, Payne's translation, pp. 96 ff. , 115. 



THE TREATISE 161 

All such are good exercises. The local imagination, by 
which is meant the skill to represent anything in the 
place where it was actually seen, is something very ad- 
vantageous ; for example, the ability to find one's way 
out of a forest by noticing those trees which were passed 
previously. It is the same with the memoria localis,^ by 
which one knows not only in what book something has 
been read, but also the exact location of the passage. 
Thus, the musician has the keys in his mind, and does 
not need to concern himself about them. It is just as 
requisite to cultivate the hearing of children, that by this 
means they may discern whether a thing is near or far 
and on which side it is. 

61. The play of blindman's-buff among children was 
known even among the Greeks, by whom it was called 
/xuivda. Children's plays are very universal, ThePiaysof 
anyway. Those which are used in Germany children, 
are found in England, France, etc. They are based upon 
a natural impulse of children. In the play of blindman's- 
buff, for example, this impulse manifests itself in the desire 
to know how they can help themselves when deprived of 
one of their senses. Top-spinning is a particular play ; 
but children's plays of this kind give men material for 
wider reflection, and sometimes are the occasions of im- 
portant inventions. Thus, Segner ^ has written a disser- 
tation on the top, and the top has given to the captain 



^ The memory of place. 

' Johann Andreas von Segner (1704-1777), a German naturalist 
and mathematician, a professor at Jena, and later at Gottingen. 

11 



162 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMxMANUEL KANT 

of an English ship the occasion to invent a mirror by 
means of which the height of stars can be measured 
aboard ship. 

Children love noisy instruments, such as little trump- 
ets, drums, etc. But these instruments are worth 
nothing, since children make themselves very trouble- 
some to others. It would be much better if they should 
learn to make whistles out of reeds. 

Swinging, also, is a good movement; adults themselves 
use it for their health ; but in this sport children must 
be watched, since the movement can become very rapid. 
Kite-flying is a faultless play. It cultivates dexterity ; for 
the height to which the kite rises depends upon its 
position relative to the wind. 

62. His interest being absorbed in these plays, the boy 
denies himself other needs, and thus learns gradually to 
impose other and greater privations upon 
Value of himself. At the same time he becomes ac- 

^^^^^' customed to continuous occupation ; but, 

for this very reason, his plays must not be merely plays ; 
they must be plays having a purpose and an end ; for 
the more his body is strengthened and hardened in this 
manner the safer is he from the disastrous consequences 
of pampering. Gymnastics should simply be confined to 
guiding nature, and ought not, therefore, to try to bring 
about affected elegance. It is discipline, and not instruc- 
tion, which should appear first. In cultivating the body 
it must not be forgotten that children are also being 
formed for society. Rousseau says, " You will never 
make an excellent man, unless you have a little scamp 



THE TREATISE 163 

to begin with." A vivacious child can become a good 
man much sooner than can a pert, artful boy. The 
child must be neither troublesome nor insinuating in his 
social relations. When he has an invitation from others, 
the child must be confident without being forward, can- 
did without being saucy. The way to accomplish this is 
not to undo anything, not to give him those ideas of 
decorum by which he is intimidated and rendered un- 
sociable, or, on the other hand, which suggest the desire 
of making himself of some account. Nothing is more 
ridiculous than precocious modesty or impertinent con- 
ceit in a child. In the latter instance, the child must be 
allowed to feel his weakness, but not too much of our 
superiority, that he may by his own efforts perfect him- 
self as a man who is to live in society ; for if the world 
is large enough for him, it must be large enough for 
others too. 

Toby, in Tristram Shandy ^^ says to a fly which had 
annoyed him for a long time, as he lets it out of the 
window, " Go, you bad thing, the world is large enough 
for you and for me." Every one could take these 
words for his motto. We must not annoy one another; 
the world is large enough for us all. 

63. We now come to the culture of the soul, which 
can, in a certain sense, also be called physical. It is 
necessary, however, to distinguish between nature and 
freedom. Giving laws to freedom is something entirely 



^ The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, by Laurence Sterne 
(1713-1768). 



164 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

different from cultivating nature. The nature of the 
body and that of the soul agree in this, that in our 
cultivation ^ the effort must be made to 
Culture of the prevent impairment to either, and that art 
^''^^' add something to the body as well as to 

the soul.^ Thus, in a certain sense, it is possible to call 
the culture of the soul, as well as that of the body, 
'' physical." 

This physical culture of the soul is to be distinguished 
from the moral culture in that the former aims solely 
at nature, the latter solely at freedom. A man can be 
highly cultivated physically ; he may have a highly per- 
fected mind, but at the same time be wanting in moral 
culture, and hence be an evil being. 

But it is necessary to distinguish physical culture from 
practical culture, which is pragmatic or moral. In the 
latter case it is moralization and not cultivation} 

64. We divide the physical culture of the mind into the 

free and the scholastic. The free culture is, so to speak, 

only a play ; and the scholastic, on the other 

Free and J r J ' ^ ^, ' • n . 

Scholastic hand, is a serious affair. The former is that 
Culture. which must always be observed in the pupil ; 

in the latter he must be considered as subjected to con- 
straint. One may be busy in play ; this is called ''busy 
in leisure ;" one can also be employed under compulsion, 
and this is called " work." The scholastic culture should 
be work, and the free should be play, for the child.'* 

1 That is, by discipline. * By culture. ^ Cf. Section 32. 
* In tlie division of the *' scholastic-mechanicaF' culture of Sec- 
tion 32, Kant is aiming a sharp criticism against a method, pre- 



THE TREATISE 165 

65. Various educational plans have been devised in 
order to try to find — something very laudable — which 
is the best method in education. It has 

Play in 

been suggested, among other things, to let Educational 
children learn everything as in play. Lich- ^^* ° ' 

tenberg,^ in a number of the Gottingen Magazine^ ridi- 
cules the opinion of those who would teach boys every- 
thing in the form of play, while really they should be 

vailing in his time, which, wherever possible, sought to teach chil- 
dren in the form of play. This criticism has not lost its force 
against the same tendency in method which has a thriving survival 
in current education. 

Elsewhere in his writings Kant utters protests against the effort 
among his contemporaries to do away with any and all constraint 
in learning. In the Critique of Judgment (1790), Hartenstein, v. 
p. 314, he observes, in treating of the mechanical factor in free art, 
that " many modern educators think they promote a free art best 
by removing from it all constraint and changing it from work into 
mere play." In the Anthropology, etc. (1793), Hartenstein, vii. 
p. 543, definite mechanical rules are regarded as absolutely essen- 
tial, even in the case of genius: ''Mechanism of instruction, since 
it forces the pupil to imitation, is, to be sure, disadvantageous to 
the germination of genius, — i.e. , as far as his originality is concerned. 
But 5'^et every art requires certain mechanical fundamental rules ; 
that is to say, it needs conformity of the product to the underlying 
idea, — i.e., truth in the representation of the object which is thought 
of. This must be learned with scholastic strictness, and is of 
course an effect of imitation. But to free the imagination from 
this constraint, and to allow the peculiar talent, even contrary to 
nature, to proceed irregularly and to run riot, would perhaps 
yield original madness, but of a sort which would not be exem- 
plary, and which would certainly not be reckoned as genius." 

^ Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742-1799), a well-known Ger- 
man natural scientist and satirist, a professor at Gottingen. 



166 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

early accustomed to serious occupations, because they 
will one day enter upon a serious life. This has a per- 
verse effect. The child should play, he should have 
hours of recreation ; but he must also learn to work. 
The culture of his skill is certainly good, like the culture 
of his mind ; but each kind of culture should be prac- 
tised at different times. It is, moreover, especially un- 
fortunate for man that he is so greatly inclined to indo- 
lence. The more a person has idled away his time the 
more difficult it is for him to make up his mind to work. 

QQ. In labor the employment is not agreeable in itself, 
but it is undertaken with another end in view. Employ- 
piay versus Hieut in play, on the contrary, is agreeable 
Work. [^ itself without having a further purpose. 

When we go out for a walk, the walk itself is the pur- 
pose, and the longer the walk the more agreeable it is to 
us. If, however, we wish to go somewhere, the society 
which is to be found in that place, or something else, 
is the purpose of our going, and we choose the shortest 
way. The same applies equally to card-playing. It is 
strange indeed to see how rational men are capable of 
sitting and shuffling cards by the hour. This shows that 
men do not cease so easily to be children ; for in what 
particular is this play any better than the children's 
game of ball ? It is true that adults do not ride a stick, 
but they none the less ride other hobby-horses.^ 

^ Kant remarks on the meaning of play as follows in the Anthro- 
pology, etc. (Hartenstein, vii. p. 596): "The plays of the boy 
(ball, wrestling, running races,, playing soldier) ; further, those of 
the man (chess, cards, where in the case of the former the mere 



THE TREATISE 167 

67. It is of the greatest importance that children 
learn to work. Man is the only animal that must work.^ 
He is obliged to make a great deal of prepa- ^^^.j^ ^^^ 
ration before coming to the enjoyment of Education, 
that which is necessary for his sustenance. The ques- 
tion whether heaven would not have provided for us 
much better by offering us everything already prepared, 
so that work would not be required of us, must certainly 
be answered negatively ; for man craves employment, 
even such as entails a certain constraint. Just as erro- 
neous is the idea that if Adam and Eve had only re- 
mained in Paradise, they would have had nothing to do 
but sit together, sing Arcadian songs, and contemplate 
the beauty of nature. Ennui would as certainly have 
tormented them as it does other people under similar 
circumstances. 

Man must be occupied in such a manner that, so en- 



superiority of the understanding, in the latter the net gain is the 
one object in mind); finally, those of the citizen, who tries his luck 
in public, with faro or dice, — are all spurred on unconsciously by 
wiser nature to daring feats, to try their strength in conflict with 
others, really in order that the vital force may be preserved from 
exhaustion and kept active. Two such opponents think that they 
are playing with each other ; whereas, as a matter of fact, nature 
is playing with them both, of which their reason can easily con- 
vince them when they consider how badly the means they choose 
suit their purpose." 

* The exaggeration in this statement can readily be permitted to 
stand in spite of the facts in the lives of bees, ants, the nest- 
building of birds, the dam-building of beavers, etc. Work as 
instinct expression and work as a rational necessity are doubtless 
the radical distinctions Kant here conveys. (See Section 3.) 



168 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

grossed by the purpose which he has in mind, he be- 
comes oblivious of himself, and the best rest for him is 
that which follow^s labor ; hence the child must be ac- 
customed to labor. And where else than in the school 
is it possible to give the inclination to work a better cul- 
tivation ? ^ The school is a forced culture. To lead 
the child to look upon everything as play is very injurious. 
There must be a time for recreation, but there must also 
be a time for work. Even if the child does not see the 
utility of this constraint immediately, he will become 
aware of its great benefits later. It would only indulge 
children's indiscreet curiosity ahvays to answer their 
questions. Why is this ? and Why is that ? Education 

^ "So far as excessive study is concerned, it is not necessary to 
warn young people against it. In this matter youth needs the spurs 
rather than a bridle. Even the most violent and the most per- 
sistent exertion in this regard can well tire the mind, so that as a 
result man may take a dislike to science, but will not put it out of 
tune where it has not already been disconcerted, and therefore 
found pleasure in mystical books and in manifestations which go 
beyond healthy human understanding. To this also belongs the 
inclination to devote one's self to the reading of books which have 
received a certain holy anointing, merely on account of this liberal- 
ism, without aiming at the moral, for which a certain author has 
coined the phrase, ' He is writing mad.' " [Foot-note by Kant.] 
* ' It is a common experience that merchants engage in too much 
business and lose themselves in too extensive plans. But anxious 
parents need not fear excess of industry in their young people (if 
their heads are level to begin with). Nature herself guards against 
such overloading of knowledge in this way : the things over 
which he has racked his brains, but all to no purpose, disgust the 
student." — Anthropology, etc. (1798), Hartenstein, vii. pp. 535, 
536. 



THE TREATISE 169 

must be full of constraint, but this does not mean that it 
shall be slavish.^ 

6S. As for the free culture of the faculties of the 
mind,^ it must be observed that it is continuous. It has 

^ Kant herein departs from Rousseau in thus denying the great 
value of the principle of utility as a motive for learning. The fol- 
lowing passage in the Anthropology, etc. (Hartenstein, vii. p. 459), 
could well be taken as directed against the great effort of the 
Philanthropinists to rob work of its true characteristics : "7b make 
something difficult easy is a service; to represent it as easy, though 
one is not able to do it one's self, is deceit.'" (Cf. Section 64, note.) 

^ Kant here means the " intellectuaP ' powers, excluding the 
"affective" and "active" powers. He followed the old doctrine 
of the mental faculties, — indeed, he established the doctrine by 
giving it his authoritative adoption, — which he rather regarded 
as real powers. The basal differentiation between Kantian and 
Herbartian pedagogy is first to be sought in Herbart's critical over- 
throw of this psychological doctrine of the faculties. 

Kant here, as elsewhere, accepts the theory of the equihbrium 
of the mental faculties, which has been, and remains an undemon- 
strable ideal of psychology. The corresponding theory in physics was 
established in the past generation as the working principle of the 
conservation and correlation of energy. This ideal has played an 
enormous role in pedagogy, usually in terms of the old pedagogical 
maxim, which Kant here probably most nearly approximates, of 
the "harmonious development of the mental powers as an end 
and a duty in education." (See Section 10.) In one of his ear- 
liest observations upon the structure of the human mind he 
found psychological features which, if true, rob this maxim of all 
its empirical worth : "In the perfection of the human understand- 
ing there is no such proportion and similarity as, for example, 
in the structure of the human body. In the case of the latter it is, 
indeed, possible to estimate the size of the whole from the size of 
one and the other members, but in mental ability it is entirely 



170 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

the higher powers particularly in view. The lower 

powers are cultivated at the same time, but only with 

reference to the hidier; wit, for example. 

Education of & » i f •> 

the Mental with reference to the understanding. The 
Faculties. principal rule to be followed here is that no 
power of the mind shall be cultivated in isolation, but 
each with reference to the others ; for example, the 
imagination only for the benefit of the understanding. 

The lower faculties have no worth in themselves ; for 
example, a man may have a great memory, but no judg- 
ment. Such a one is a living lexicon. But such pack- 
mules of Parnassus are necessary ; for, although they 
themselves are unable to produce anything rational, they 
can drag along the material out of which others can 
bring something good.^ Wit becomes outright silliness 

different. Science is an irregular body, without evenness and 
uniformity. A learned man of a dwarf's stature often excels in 
this or that division of knowledge another who towers far above 
him with the whole range of his science. The vanity of men does 
not extend so far, according to all appearances, as not to be aware 
of this difference." — Thoughts on the True Valuation of Living 
Forces (1747), Hartenstein, i. p. 7. 

^ There occur many allusions in Kant's writings to empty and 
lifeless learning, of which these are a few instances : 

''There is also gigantic learning, but which is often cyclopean, 
— that is to say, lacking an eye, — namely, that of true philosophy, 
in order to use purposively through reason this mass of historical 
knowledge, the burden of a hundred camels." — Anthropology, etc., 
Hartenstein, vii. p. 545. 

' ' He who cannot think himself, although he can learn a great deal, 
is called a dull (stupid) man. A person can be a vast scholar (a 
machine for the instruction of others, as he himself was instructed), 
and yet be very stupid so far as the rational use of his historical 



THE TREATISE 171 

if it is unaccompanied by judgment. Understanding is 
the knowledge of the universal. Judgment is the ap- 
plication of the universal to the particular. Reason is 
the faculty of perceiving the union of the universal with 
the particular.^ The free culture continues its course 
from childhood until the time when the youth is liberated 
from all education.^ If, for example, a youth adduces a 

knowledge is concerned. — He whose procedure with that which he 
has learned betrays publicly the restraint of the school (hence the 
lack of freedom in his own thinking) is d, pedant, be he scholar, 
soldier, or even courtier." — Anthropology, etc., Hartenstein, vii. 
p. 449. 

"The obtuse person lacks wit, the stupid person lacks under- 
standing. Quickness in grasping and in remembering a'thing, also 
ease in expressing it properly, have a great deal to do with wit ; 
hence he who is not stupid can be very obtuse in so far as it is 
difficult to get something into his head, although the next moment 
he may be able to see it with greater ripeness of judgment ; and 
difficulty in expressing one's self is no proof of lack of under- 
standing, but only that the wit did not furnish sufficient aid in 
clothing the thoughts in the most suitable symbols." — Essay on the 
Diseases of the Head (1764), Hartenstein, ii. p. 214. 

^ In the Anthropology, etc. (Hartenstein, vii. pp. 545, 546), Kant 
distinguishes these three faculties in terms of the peculiar ques- 
tion each is supposed to ask: "The understanding asks: What 
do I will? (i.e., in the theoretical sense : What will I affirm as 
true?); the judgment asks : What's it about? the reason asks: 
What is its result?" 

^ On the time limit. (See Section 26.) 

"The age when man attains the complete use of his reason can, 
with reference to his skill (ability in any direction), be fixed at 
about the twentieth year, with reference to prudence (ability to use 
other men for his own purposes) in the fortieth year, and finally, 
with reference to wisdom, at about the sixtieth year ; but in the 



172 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

universal rule, he should be permitted to cite instances 
in history or in fables in which it is concealed, and 
passages in poetry where it is already expressed, and 
thus induced to exercise his wit, memory, etc. 

69. The maxim, tantum scimus^ quantum memoria tene- 
mws,^ is without doubt quite correct, and that is why the 
Importance of culture of the memory is very necessary. 
Memory and All thinsfs are so made that the understand- 
Mechanical mg urst lollows the scusuous impressious 
Methods. ^^^ ^Yie memory must retain them. Thus 

it is, for example, with languages. They can be learned 
either by formal^ memorizing or by conversation, and 
in the case of modern languages the latter is the best 
method. The acquisition of a vocabulary is really in- 
last epoch it is more negative, seeing all the foolishness of the 
first two," etc. — Anthropology, etc. (1798), Hartenstein, vii. p. 
517. 

It should be observed how Kant here works his doctrine of free- 
dom into the intellectual processes, — a tendency hardly in accord 
with the Critique of Pure Reason. This view is definitely affirmed 
in the Anthropology, etc. : "The inner perfection of man consists 
in this, that he has the use of all his faculties in his power, so as 
to subject them to his free will." — Ibid., p. 455. 

^ We know only so much as we hold in the memory. As for 
the correctness of this maxim, that it might serve as a basis for 
pedagogical practices, there has been much debate. We of to-day 
would probably invert the order of dependence, and say that we 
really remember only that which we know, and therefore easily 
forget what we do not understand. 

^ "Formal" and "material" are important concepts in Kant's 
philosophical thinking, which appear in his pedagogy. (Cf. the 
type of division in Section 100.) 



THE TREATISE 173 

dispensable ; but it is best to have the pupils learn those 
words which occur in reading an author. It is neces- 
sary that the pupils have a fixed and definite task. Ge- 
ography also is best learned by a mechanical method. 
The memory especially loves this form of mechanism, 
and in a multitude of cases it is very useful. Up to the 
present time there has been contrived no mechanism to 
facilitate the study of history ; the attempt has been 
made with tables, but these do not appear to have very 
good effects.^ History, however, is an excehent means 
of exercising the understanding in judging. Memorizing 
is very necessary, but as a mere exercise it has no value, 
— for example, memorizing a speech word for word. 
In any case, it only helps towards the encouragement of 
confidence ; and, besides, declaiming is something for 
adults only.^ Here belong also all those things which are 
learned merely for a future examination, or in fnturam 
oblivionem.^ The memory should be employed only with 

^ Rink cites in a note the historical tables of Scholzer, and sug- 
gests that Pestalozzi's idea and practice appear to have been expres- 
sive of the mechanical aims here discussed by Kant. 

' To be sure, there are men of intelligence and insight who seem 
to be incapable of declaiming. But it is certain that that is more 
easily remembered which is read with the necessary expression, or 
which, at least, could be so read, and the latest method of reading 
has proved that the foundation for this can be laid easily and suc- 
cessfully. See Olivier, Ueber Character und Wert guter Unterrichts- 
methoden, Leipzig, 1802, and his Kunst, lesen und recht schreiben zu 
lehren, Dessau, 1801. (On the Character and Worth of Good 
Methods of Instruction, and Art of Teaching Reading and Correct 
Writing.) [A note by Kant.] 

' To be soon forgotten. 



174 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

such things as are important for us to remember and 
which have relation to real life. Novel-reading is most 
injurious to children, since it only serves to amuse them 
for the time being. Such reading weakens the memory. 
It would be absurd to wish to remember romances and 
to repeat them to others. Thus all novels should be 
taken out of the hands of children. While reading 
them they fashion for themselves in the story a new 
romance ; for they rearrange the circumstances, and fall 
into reveries and become empty-minded/ 

Distractions must never be tolerated, least of all in 
the school, for they end in producing certain inclinations 
and certain habits. Even the most beautiful 
talents perish in him who is subject to dis- 
traction. If children become heedless in their pleasures, 
they soon compose themselves ; but they appear most 
distracted when they have some naughtiness in mind, 
for then they are thinking how they can conceal or 

^ Kant remarks repeatedly on the evils of novel-reading. (Cf., 
for example, ^n^Arcipo/o^y, etc., Hartenstein, vii. p. 525.) "Novel- 
reading, besides causing many other depressions of the spirits, 
makes distraction habitual. For although, by descriptions of 
characters which are really to be found among men (although the 
descriptions are exaggerated), it gives the thoughts a coherence 
(connection, continuity), as in a true history whose exposition must 
always be in a certain way systematic, yet at the same time it allows 
the mind, while the reading is going on, to insert digressions (for 
example, still other events as imaginings) and the current of 
thought becomes fragmentary, so that the ideas of one and the 
same object are allowed to play about in the mind in a scattered 
way (sparsim), not connected according to intellectual unity {con- 
junctim).'" (See also Selection VI. p. 2bb.) 



THE TREATISE 175 

repair it. Then they only half hear, do not know what 
they are reading, etc.^ 

70. The memory must be cultivated early, but care 
must be taken to cultivate the understandingr 

° Methods of 

at the same tmie.^ Memory 

The memory is cultivated : '''^^^^^^• 

(a) By retaining the names which appear in narratives. 

(6) By reading and writing ; the child must practise 

the former by mental effort without having recourse to 

spelling. 

(c) By languages, which the child must learn first by 
hearing before he reads anything. 

Then a suitably arranged orbis pidus^ so called, would 
be of great use, and a beginning can be made with 
botany, mineralogy, and a description of science 

nature in general. To make sketches of instruction, 
these objects gives occasion for drawing and modelling, 
for which a knowledge of mathematics is necessary. 
The earliest scientific instruction is connected most ad- 
vantageously with geography, mathematical as well as 
physical.^ The narration of travels, illustrated by maps 

^ In the Reflections on Anthropology, p. 121 (cited by Vogt, p. 92), 
Kant recognizes two kinds of distraction, both of which are real 
enemies of attention in the best pedagogical sense of the term : 
one is thoughtlessness, which is negative, and to which the re- 
marks on novel-reading are directed ; the other is distraction 
proper, which is positive. 

' See Selection VI. for passage on Memory. 

' This preference for geography as a subject and means for intel- 
lectual education runs back in Kant's hfe to a period as early as 



176 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

and engravings, leads to political geography. From a 
study of the present surface of the earth the student 
goes back to its former condition, and comes upon 
ancient geography, ancient history, etc. 

In the instruction of children we must try to effect a 

gradual union of knowledge and power. Among all 

the sciences, mathematics appears to be the 

Union of ' jri- ^ 

Knowledge ouc which bcst accomplishes this purpose.^ 
and Power. Moreovcr, knowledge and language should 
be united (eloquence, rhetoric, and oratory). But the 

1765-66, as is indicated in his announcement of his university 
lectures for that winter semester, a part of which is translated in 
Selection VII. Wallace remarks in his Kant (p. 31) that Kant and 
Hamann, the "Magus of the North," "seem in 1759 to have en- 
tertained the idea of a joint-work — a natural philosophy for children 
{Kinder-physik). ' ' 

1 On this separation of knowledge and abihty, which Kant simply 
postulates here as existing and as constituting a problem for all 
instruction, he makes a special remark in the Critique of Judgment 
in trying to determine the intimate nature of art : 

"Art as the skill of man is also to be distinguished from science 
(power from knowledge), as practical from theoretical faculty, as 
technique from theory (as surveying from geometry). And even 
that which one can do, as soon as he knows what should be done, 
and therefore is sufficiently familiar with the desired effect, cannot 
be called art. Only that which one, even though he knows it most 
thoroughly, has not yet the skill to make, belongs in so far to art." 
— Hartenstein, v. p. 313. 

This unusual pedagogical selection of mathematics as capable of 
overcoming the contradiction usually affirmed to exist between 
theory and practice had more light thrown upon it, according to 
Willmann (p. 122), in Bernhardi's Mathematik und Sprachen, 
Gegensatz und Ergdnzung, 1818, whose foundation was derived 
from Kant's theory of knowledge. (Cf Section 75, below.) 



THE TREATISE 177 

child must also learn to distinguish clearly between 
knowledge and mere opinion and belief.^ In this way 
there is formed a correct understanding, and a taste that 
is correct rather than fine or delicate. The taste which is 
to be cultivated first is that of the senses, especially that 
of the eye, and lastly that of ideas.^ 

71. Rules must appear in everything that is to culti- 
vate the understanding.^ It is also very useful to ab- 



^ See the third section of the second part of the Methodology of 
the Critique of Pure Reason, where Kant treats at length of the 
relations between "opining, knowing, and believing." 

^ Cf. Section 52 and note. In these two paragraphs of Section 
70, which tend to summarize the content of a course of study, it 
is rather amazing not to find anything selected from poetry, music, 
and the other fine arts, as containing educative material. (See 
Selection V.) One is tempted to ask. Was the last paragraph of 
Section 70 written after the Critique of Judgment (1790), especially 
its Introduction, which treats critically of the union of man's 
psychological powers in aesthetical experiences and its expression in 
judgments of taste? 

' "The natural understanding can, through instruction, be en- 
riched with many concepts and furnished with rules ; but the 
second intellectual faculty — namely, that of knowing whether 
something falls under a rule or not, judgment {judicium) — cannot 
be taught, but only practised ; therefore its growth is called ma- 
turity, and that understanding which, we say, does not come before 
the years. It is also easy to see that this could not be otherwise ; 
for instruction takes place by communication of rules. In case 
one should attempt to instruct judgment, universal rules would 
be necessary according to which one could decide whether a given 
case falls under a rule or not," etc. — Anthropology, etc. (1798), 
Hartenstein, vii. p. 515. 

12 



178 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

stract them, so that the understanding may not proceed 
in a merely mechanical fashion, but rather with a con- 
sciousness of the rule which it is following. 

It is also very good to arrange the rules into certain 
formulas and to intrust them in this form to the memory. 
Training the Then, if we remember a rule and have for- 
understanding. gotten its application, we will not be long in 
recovering it. Here occurs the question : whether rules 
should first be given in abstraeto and learned only when 
their application has been completed, or should rule 
and use go together. The latter course alone is ad- 
visable. In the other instance the use remains very 
uncertain until one reaches the rules. The rules should 
also occasionally be arranged into classes ; for they are 
not retained if they have no relation to one another. 
Thus grammar must always be a little in advance in the 
study of languages. 

72. We must now give a systematic concept of the 
whole aim of education and of the manner in which it is 
_. , . . to be attained.^ 

Final Division 

of Educational 1. The general culture of the faculties of the 
Activities. 'jfnind^ distinguished from their particular cul- 
ture. It aims at dexterity and perfection : the pupil is 

^ This section, taken with Section 31, constitutes the chief divis- 
ion of educational theory vs^hich Kant makes, his whole treatment 
being subordinated to or regulated by this division. This section 
presents his conception of the parts of education more scientifically, 
so to speak, than do any of the other sections treating this point. 
Sections 31, 72 should be closely compared with Section 18, 
between which one does not find any lack of harmony, the latter 



THE TREATISE 179 

not merely informed in some particular thing, but his 
mental powers are strengthened.^ It is either 

(a) Physical or 

(b) Moral.' 

(a) Physical. — Here everything depends on practice 
and discipline, without it being necessary for the child 
to know any maxims. It is passive for the pupil, who 
must be obedient to the direction of another. Others 
think for him. 

(6) Moral. — This does not depend on discipline, but 
on maxims.^ Everything is lost if one attempts to base 

being more empirically exhaustive, the former more philosophically 
schematic. Thus we catch a glimpse of the severely systematic 
character of Kant's mode of thinking. We also here discern the 
real pedagogical system which Kant gives evidence of having ac- 
tually thought out, — a credit which has too often been withheld 
from him. 

^ This conception of mental faculties, which regards them like 
separate muscles in the body, lies at the basis of the doctrine of 
formal training, here apparently adopted by Kant without modifi- 
cation. This is also rather a logical sequence to the aim of educa- 
tion presented in Section 10. 

^ One should not fail to note that that portion of physical educa- 
tion which is presented in Section 31 — viz., "maintenance" — does 
not appear in this systematic exhibition of educational ends. It 
seems to have been intentionally excluded as early as Section 34. 
"Pragmatic instruction," likewise, disappears here. (Cf. Section 
33.) It is well to observe how this division of educational theory 
really contains everything which Kant has already affirmed to be 
a factor in education. (Cf. Section 18.) 

^ "Maxim" is a most important technical term in Kant's theory 
and practice of ethics. It stands in contrast with, yet in close 
relation to "law." Thus: ''Maxim is the subjective principle 



180 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

it upon examples, threats, punishments, etc. Then it 
would be nothing but mere discipline. We should see 
to it that the pupil behaves well from his own maxims 
and not from habit, and that he not only do the good, 
but do it for the reason that it is good ; for the moral 
worth of actions consists in the maxims of good. The 
difference between physical education and moral educa- 
tion is this : the former is passive for the pupil, the 
latter active. He must always perceive the principles 
of action and the bond which attaches it to the idea of 
duty.^ 

73. 2. The particular culture of the faculties of the 

mind.^ This includes the culture of the intellect, the 

senses, the imaj?ination, the memory, the 

Culture of the ' ^ ' , . 

Lower Mental strengthening of the attention, and the wit, 
Faculties. ^^^ ^^^^^ whatever concerns the lower 
powers of the understanding. We have already men- 
tioned the culture of the senses ; for example, the 
visual perception of space. As for the culture of the 

of willing ; the objective principle {i.e. , that which would also serve 
all rational beings subjectively as a practical principle if reason 
had full power over the active faculties) is the practical law.'" — 
Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Ethics, Hartenstein, 
iv. p. 248. (Cf. the first section of the Critique of Practical 
Reason.) A maxim, being the formula which dictates an action 
for a reasonable being, is opposed to the principle of mechanical 
action. It is likewise an important element in his theory of moral 
education. (See Sections 77, 78.) 

1 See Section 19. 

^ Cf. Sections 52-66 and 68-71 for the earlier discussions of the 
culture of the lower faculties of the mind. 



THE TREATISE 181 

imagination, the following is to be remarked : children 
have an extremely powerful imagination, which has no 
need of being further stretched and strained by fairy- 
tales. It has much more need of being governed and 
brought under rules ; but, at the same time, it should 
not be left entirely inactive. 

Geographical maps have something in them which 
charms all children, even the smallest. When they are 
tired of everything else, they still learn some- 

,, . , 1 A 1 n • • Value of Maps. 

thmg when maps are used. And this is an 
excellent diversion for children, where their imagination 
is not allowed to wander, but must be fixed on a defi- 
nite figure. It is really possible to begin with geography. 
Pictures of animals, plants, etc., can be added at the 
same time ; these will enliven geography. But history 
should not appear until later. 

As for strengthening the attention, it should be ob- 
served that this must not be neglected. To attach our 
thoughts fixedly to an object is not so much 

, 1 , 1 i> • Attention. 

a talent as a weakness of our inner sense, 
because it is inflexible in this case and cannot be applied 
at will. Distraction is the enemy of all education ; but 
memory is based upon attention.^ 

^ Following the passage from the Anthropology, etc., translated 
in note 1 to Section 69, p. 174, Kant gives this illustration : 

"The teacher from the pulpit, or in the academic class-room, or 
the legal prosecutor, or advocate, if he wishes to show presence of 
mind in free delivery (impromptu), eventually in relating something, 
must give proof of three kinds of attention : first, regard for that 
which he is now saying, in order to represent it clearly ; second, 
reference to that which he has said; and third, provision for that 



182 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

74. As for the higher faculties of the understanding, we 

have to do here with the culture of the understanding, the 

iudgment, and the reason. In a certain 

Culture of the "^ ° ' 

Higher Mental sensc, the training of the understanding can 
Faculties. begin passively with the citation of examples 
which apply to a rule or, vice versa, with the discovery 
of the rule which applies to particular cases. The judg- 
ment indicates what use is to be made of the under- 
standing. The understanding is necessary in order to 
comprehend what has been learned or spoken, and in 
order to repeat nothing without comprehending it. How 
many read and hear things without understanding them, 
even though they believe them ! Pictures and things 
are necessary to understanding. 

The reason discerns principles. But it must be re- 
membered that we are here speaking of a reason that is 
still under guidance ; hence it must not always wish 
to reason, but it must be on its guard against reasoning 
too much about that which transcends its concepts. 
We are not here speaking of the speculative reason, but 
of reflection upon that which occurs according to its 
causes and effects. It is a reason which, in its economy 
and arrangement, is practical.^ 



which he wishes to say later. If he neglects attention to these 
three things, — i.e., if he neglects to arrange them in this order, — he 
distracts himself and his hearer or reader, and even a usually in- 
telligent man cannot help getting confused." 

^ This every-day "practical" reason must not be confused with 
the speculative reason in its ethical aspects, which Kant also calls 
" practical." 



THE TREATISE 183 

75. The best method of cultivating the faculties of the 
mind is that each one himself do all that which he 
wishes to accomplish ; ^ for example, to put Learning and 
immediately into practice the grammatical Practice, 
rules which he has learned. A geographical map is 
best understood if one can draw it himself. The best 
way to understand is to do. That is most thoroughly 
learned and best remembered which one learns himself. 
There are, however, but few men who are capable of 
this. They are called self-taught men {abrodidaxroi). 

76. In the culture of the reason, one must proceed 
according to the Socratic method.^ Socrates,^ who 
called himself the intellectual midwife of his socratic 
hearers, gives in his dialogues, which Plato ^ trfin*in°*^th^ 
has in a certain sense preserved for us, ex- Reason, 
amples of how one can lead even old people to pro- 

^ In this rule Kant probably reached the highest point in his 
pedagogy of intellect, which was to prepare the way for the au- 
tonomy of the will in its organization of character. 

* See Selection VIII., Section 119. An early modification of this 
method appears in Kant's own pedagogical activity. In announcing 
his lectures for the summer semester of 1758, he states his inten- 
tion to pursue the following method in metaphysics: "In the 
Wednesday and Saturday hours I shall consider polemically those 
propositions treated on the preceding days. In my opinion, the 
polemical method is the best method for obtaining fundamental 
insights." — Hartenstein, ii. p. 25. 

' A Greek philosopher (470-399 b.c). His teaching and death 
revolutionized philosophy. His maxim was : Know thyself. His 
method was that of interrogation. 

* The most distinguished disciple of Socrates (429-347 b.c.) 
and the author of the immortal Dialogues. 



184 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

duce considerable from their own reason. There are 
many points on which it is not necessary that children 
should exercise their reason. They must not reason 
about everything. They do not need to know the rea- 
sons of everything which is to contribute to their edu- 
cation ; but as soon as duty comes into question, the 
principles must be made known to them. We must see 
to it, anyway, that rational knowledge be drawn out of 
them rather than introduced into them. The Socratic 
should furnish the rule for the catechetical method.^ It 
is, to be sure, rather slow ; and it is difficult so to 
arrange it that at the same time that knowledge is 
being drawn out of one mind the others shall learn 
something. The mechanically catechetical method is 
also good in many of the sciences ; for example, in the 
instruction in revealed religion. In universal religion, 
on the contrary, it is necessary to employ the Socratic 
method. In respect to that which must be learned his- 

^ This proceeds solely by means of questions and answers 
which have been prepared in advance of the pupil's study. In 
its pure form the teacher does not speak otherwise than to ask 
the questions. Its "mechanical" character appears when the 
questions and answers alternate as an aid to memory. (See Kant's 
model of a "Moral Catechism," Selection XL, and Selection VIII. , 
Section 119, where Kant does not seem to hold the catechism in 
very high esteem.) 

Willmann (p. 124) supposes Kant in these observations in Sec- 
tion 76 to have had in mind Bahrdt's Philanthropinischer Erzie- 
hungsplan, Frankfurt-am-Main, 1776, which introduced the con- 
sideration of the Socratic method. 

J. F. C. Grasse published a work in 1795 bearing the title 
Lehrbuch der allgemeinen Katechetik nach KanV schen Orundsdtzten. 



THE TREATISE 186 

torically, the mechanically catechetical method is found 
to be preferable.^ 



MORAL EDUCATION.^ 

77. Moral culture must be based upon maxims, not 
upon discipline. Discipline prevents defects ; moral cul- 
ture shapes the manner of thinking. One Moral culture 
must see to it that the child accustom him- ^"<^ Maxims, 
self to act according to maxims and not according to cer- 



^ In these Notes Kant has little or nothing to say about "learn- 
ing" (see Sections 70, 73, 75), a topic of importance in the gen- 
eral theme. A note on this point, with somewhat wider and dif- 
ferent bearings, is found in the Dialectic of the Critique of Practical 
Reason, has pedagogical interest, and is here transcribed : 

''Learning is really only the totality of historical sciences. Con- 
sequently only the teacher of revealed theology can be called a God- 
learned man. But if one wishes also to call him v/ho is in pos- 
session of rational sciences (mathematics and philosophy) learned, 
although this would at once contradict the meaning of the word 
(as at all times only that can be reckoned as learning which one 
must be taught, and which, therefore, one cannot discover by him- 
self through reason) ; even so the philosopher with his knowledge 
of God, as a positive science, would make too poor a figure to let 
himself be called learned on this account." — Hartenstein, v. pp. 
143, 144. 

See foot-note 1, p. 170 ; Selection I., Nos. 8, 18, 20 ; also Selec- 
tions VIII. and IX. 

^ In several editions of the Lecture- Notes, as in Rink's, Harten- 
stein's, Vogt's, etc., which retain any headings to the divisions of 
Kant's discussions, the superscription "Practical Education" is 
placed before Section 91. The intervening sections are so patently 
concerned with this topic that I have placed the heading "Moral 



186 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

tain impulses. Discipline leaves habits only, which fade 
away with years. The child should learn to act accord- 
ing to maxims whose justice he himself perceives. It is 
easily seen that it is very difficult to accomplish this in 
the case of young children, and that therefore moral 
education demands the utmost sagacity on the part of 
parents and teachers. 

When the child is untruthful, for example, he should 
not be punished, but treated with contempt, and should 
be told that he will not be believed in the future, etc. 
But if he is punished when he does wrong and is re- 
warded when he does right, he does right in order to 
be treated well. And when later he enters the world 
where things do not happen in that way, but where he 
can do right or wrong without receiving any reward or 
chastisement, he becomes a man who thinks only of how 
he can best make his way in the world, and will be good 
or bad just as he finds it most profitable. 

78. The maxims must spring from man himself. In 
moral education, the attempt to introduce into the child's 
Morality versus Hiiud the idea of what is good or evil must 
Discipline. j^g niadc Very early. If one wishes to es- 
tablish morality, there must be no punishment. Mo- 
rality is something so holy and sublime that it must not 



Education" before Section 77, following Kant's analysis in Sec- 
tion 72, and accepting Burger's very proper suggestion. Sections 
77-90 present the intellectual basis, and hence the passive aspect 
of character ; Sections 91 ff. consider the active acquisition of 
character by the child. 



THE TREATISE 187 

be degraded thus and placed in the same rank with 
disciphne.^ The first endeavor in moral education is to 
establish a character. Character consists in the readi- 
ness to act according to maxims. At first these are the 
maxims of the school and later they are those of hu- 
manity. In the beginning the child obeys laws. Maxims 
also are laws, but subjective ; they spring out of the hu- 
man reason itself. No transgression of the law of the 
school should go unpunished; but, at the same time, 
the punishment must always be commensurate to the 
fault. 



^ Kant does not regard the moral law as ' ' beautiful, ' ' but as 
"sublime." In the Critique of Judgment beauty is the type of 
judgment that can be applied to nature, and sublimity is the type 
which pertains specifically to man. This peculiarly high regard for 
morality appears in its best expression in the famous apostrophe to 
duty in the Critique of Practical Reason : 

"Duty! Thou sublime great name, thou that dost embrace 
nothing popular which bears insinuation with it, but dost demand 
submission, yet without threats which excite natural aversion in 
the mind, or arouse fear in order to move the will, but that dost 
merely set up a law which of itself finds entrance into the mind, 
and yet wins for itself reluctant esteem (if not always adherence), 
before which all inclinations are silent, even though they secretly 
work against it — what is the origin worthy of thee, and where 
shall one find the roots of thy noble descent, which proudly rejects 
all relationship with natural inclinations ; a root to spring from 
which is the indispensable condition of that worth which men 
alone can give themselves T ' 

' ' Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing ad- 
miration and awe the oftener and more steadily I think about 
them : the starry heaven above me and the moral law within me.'' — 
Hartenstein, v. pp. 91, 167. 



188 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

79. If one wishes to form a character in children, it is 
very important that in all things they be shown a certain 

plan, certain laws which they must follow 

Character- ^ ' ^ 

forming by exactly. They should, for example, have a 
fixed time for sleep, for work, and for rec- 
reation ; the time, being once fixed, must be neither 
lengthened nor shortened. In the case of indifferent 
things, children may be permitted to exercise their own 
choice, but they must always continue to observe what 
they have once made a law for themselves. One should 
not attempt to give children the character of a citizen, 
but rather that of a child. 

Those persons who have not laid down certain rules 
for themselves are untrustworthy ; it frequently happens 
that it is impossible to explain their conduct, and one 
never knows exactly where to find them. It is true that 
those people are often blamed who always act according 
to rules ; for example, the man who regulates his every 
action by the clock ; but this blame is often unjust, and 
this preciseness, although it looks like painful punctil- 
iousness, is a disposition favorable to character.^ 

80. Obedience, above all things, is an essential trait in 
the character of a child, particularly that of a pupil.^ It 



^ It is said that Kant was so regular in taking his daily afternoon 
walks that passers-by would take out their timepieces to regulate 
them by his appearance ! This note might be taken as his justifi- 
cation of his regularity. 

^ This conception is almost a direct transcription of his ethics 
into his pedagogy ; for morality, according to Kant, means self- 



THE TREATISE 189 

is twofold : first, it is an obedience to the absolute will 
of him who directs ; but it is, secondly, an obedience 
to a will regarded as rational and good. Obe- 
dience can be derived from constraint, and First step in 
then it is absolute, or from confidence, and f^mation 
then it is of the other kind. This voluntary 
obedience is very important ; but the former is also ex- 
ternally necessary, since it prepares the child for the ac- 
complishment of such laws as he will have to fulfil later 
as a citizen, even if they do not please him. 

81. Children must, therefore, be under a certain law 
of necessity; but this law must be a universal one 
which is to be especially observed in schools, universal Laws 
The teacher must show no predilection, no ^° s^^°°^- 
preference for one child ; for otherwise the law ceases 
to be universal. As soon as the child sees that all others 
are not subjected to the same law as he, he becomes pre- 
sumptuous. 

82. It is always said that everything should be pre- 
sented to children in such a manner that they will do it 
from inclination. Without doubt this is good in many 



determination in the light of an absolutely unchanging principle, 
— that is, morality is obedience to the reason behind conduct. 

Kant's double treatment of the pedagogical unit as both "child" 
and "citizen" indicates that his conceptions of morality were 
elaborated in the light of their usefulness for all social as well as 
individual ends, — a phase of educational thought in which present- 
day efforts are engaged. (See Sections 12, 17, 18c, 25, 29, 88, 112, 
etc.) 



190 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

cases ; but there is also much that must be prescribed 
for them as duty} This will be of very great value 
Duty versus during their whole life ; for, in public duties, 
Inclination. |jj ^^iQ labors of an office, and in many- 
other instances, duty alone, not inclination, can guide 



^ Kant's view of the psychological affinity of the concept of duty 
and its pedagogical usage appears in the following passages : 

"For the pure conception of duty, mixed with no foreign addi- 
tion of empirical incitements, and especially the conception of the 
moral law, has upon the human heart, by means of the reason 
alone, ... an influence so much more powerful than all other 
motives which one may offer from the field of experience, that it, 
in the consciousness of its own dignity, despises the latter and can 
gradually become their master, ' ' etc. 

In a foot-note to this passage Kant gives an interesting observa- 
tion on the inadequacy of the current instruction in morals : 

*'I have a letter from the late excellent Sulzer [1720-1779], in 
which he asks me why lessons in morals accomplish so little, how- 
ever convincing they may seem to the reason. My answer was 
delayed by my preparation to give it complete. But it is no other 
than that the teachers themselves are not clear in their own ideas, 
and they destroy them, while trying to make up for this, by hunting 
up motives for being morally good, in order to make the medicine 
powerful. For the most ordinary observation shows that when 
one represents an action of uprightness, free from any idea of an 
advantage of any sort, in this or another world, performed faith- 
fully amid the greatest temptations of need or enticement, it leaves 
every similar action which was in the least degree affected by a 
foreign motive far behind, and overshadows it ; it elevates the soul 
and arouses the wish to be able also to behave thus. Even chil- 
dren of moderate age feel this impression, and duties should never 
be represented to them in any other way." — Fundamental Prin- 
ciples of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785), Hartenstein, iv. pp. 
258, 259, 



THE TREATISE 191 

US. Even if we suppose that the child does not per- 
ceive the duty, it is none the less better if he be given 
the idea of it ; and, while he can easily see his duty 
as a child, it is much more difficult to perceive that 
something is his duty as a man. If he could see this 
also, which is not possible before maturer years, his 
obedience would be more perfect. 

83. All transgression of a command by a child is a 
lack of obedience, and this entails punishment. Even 
if the transgression is due simply to nearli- 

^ r J o Punishment: 

gence, correction is not useless. This pun- Physical and 
ishment is either physical or moral} ^°^^^" 

Moral punishment is that which effects our desire to be 
honored and loved, this being auxiliary to morality ; for 
example, when the child is shamed and treated coldly 
and reservedly. These inclinations should be preserved 
as far as possible. This kind of punishment, therefore, 
is the best, since it comes to the aid of morality ; for 
example, if a child lies, a look of scorn is sufficient and 
most suitable. 

Physical punishment consists either in the refusal of 

^ In his treatment of this topic, much of Rousseau's influence 
can be traced. (See Emile, Payne's translation, p. 65.) At the 
same time, Kant adds to Rousseau's scheme of punishment by 
natural consequences a more positive means of education, regard- 
ing the former as inadequate. This is an interesting feature in 
Kant's moral theory, which stoutly protested against the utility 
feature of Rousseau's scheme : those acts are good which are 
useful. To Kant, the outcome of an action is incidental and in- 
different ; the morality resides in the motive or intention generating 
the action. 



192 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

that which the child desires or in the infliction of chas- 
tisement. The former is closely related to moral pun- 
ishment, and is negative. The other forms should be 
practised with caution, in order that they may not re- 
sult in indoles servilis} It is not good to distribute 
rewards among children; it makes them selfish, and 
results in indoles mercenaria.^ 

84. Obedience, moreover, is either that of the child or 
of the adolescent. Disobedience entails punishment. This 

is either really natural, brought by man 

Punishment: ir. i i • 

Natural and upou himself by his own conduct ; tor ex- 
Artificiai. ample, the child falls ill if he eats too much ; 

and these forms of punishment are the best, for man ex- 
periences them, not only in his childhood, but through- 
out his whole life ; or it is artificial. The desire to be 
esteemed and loved is a sure means of making chastise- 
ments durable. Physical means should serve merely 
to supplement the insufficiency of moral punishments. 
When the latter are of no avail, and recourse is had to 
the former, the formation of a good character ceases. 
But in the beginning physical constraint supplies the 
deficiency of reflection in the child. 

85. Punishments which are angrily inflicted have per- 
verted effects. Children then regard them as merely the 
Mode of *consequences, but themselves as objects, of 
Punishment, another's emotion. Children should always 
be corrected cautiously, that they may see that the only 
aim in view is their improvement. It is absurd to de- 

^ A servile disposition. ^ A mercenary disposition. 



THE TREATISE 193 

mand of children, when they have been chastised, that 
they shall thank you, that they shall kiss your hand, etc. ; 
this only makes them servile. If physical punishments 
are often repeated, they make a child stubborn ; and if 
parents chasten their children for wilfulness, they only 
make them more wilful. Stubborn people are not always 
the worst, but often yield easily to kindly remonstrances. 

86. The obedience of the adolescent is different from 
that of the child. It consists in submission to the rules 
of duty. To do anything for the sake of conduct of the 
duty means to obey reason. It is useless to Adolescent, 
speak of duty to children. They come to look upon it 
as something the transgression of which is followed by 
the rod. The child could be guided by his instincts 
alone ; but as soon as he begins to develop, the idea of 
duty must be added. One should not have recourse to 
the sentiment of shame with children, but should re- 
serve it until the period of adolescence ; for shame can 
be present only when the idea of honor has taken root. 

87. A second chief trait in the formation of the child's 
character is veracity} Indeed, this is the principal 

^ Lying is an anthropological and a moral phenomenon which 
had great interest for Kant, as is indicated in numerous passages 
and fragments. (See Selection I., No. 33.) 

"The transgression of the duty of truthfulness is called a lie ; 
wherefore there may be external, but also internal lies, so that 
both can occur together, or even as contradicting each other. 

" But a lie, be it internal or external, is twofold : (1) when one 
asserts as true something which he knows to be untrue ; (2) when 

13 



194 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

feature and the essence of a character. A man who 
lies has no character at all, and if there be anything 

one asserts as certain something of which he knows himself to be 
subjectively uncertain. 

''Lying ('from the Father of lies, through whom all evil is 
come into the world') is the really corrupt spot in human na- 
ture," etc. — Announcement of the Early Conclusion of a Tractate 
on Everlasting Peace in Philosophy (1796), Hartenstein, vi. p. 
498. 

"The greatest violation of man's duty towards himself, re- 
garded merely as a moral creature (towards humanity in his own 
person), is the reverse of truthfulness, or lying. ... A lie may 
be an external or an internal one. By the former, man makes 
himself an object of contempt in the eyes of others ; by the latter, 
which is still more, in his own eyes, and injures the dignity of 
humanity in his own person. . . . Lying is rejection and, as it 
were, destruction of his human dignity. . . . Man as a moral 
being {homo noumenon) cannot use himself as a physical being 
(homo phcenomenon), as a mere means (speaking machine), not 
bound to the internal purpose of the communication of thoughts, 
but he is bound to the condition of the agreement with the dec- 
laration of the former, and is pledged to truthfulness towards him- 
self," etc.— The Metaphysics of Morals, Pt. IL (1797), Harten- 
stein, vii. pp. 234-236. 

In the same year appeared his essay On a Supposed Right to Lie 
from Humanitarian Motives, in which he reached the conclusion that 
there can be found no excuse for any sort of lying. 

"One can class with the unintentional play of the productive 
imagination, which may then be called fantasy, the inclination 
to guileless lying which is always met with in children, now and 
then in adults, otherwise good, sometimes almost like an hereditary 
disease, where, in relating something, events and alleged adven- 
tures, growing like an avalanche, emerge from the imagination, 
with no other intention whatsoever than merely to be interest- 
ing," etc. — Anthropology, etc., Hartenstein, vii. pp. 494, 495. 



THE TREATISE 195 

good in him, he owes it entirely to his temperament. 
Many children have a disposition to lie, which has no 
other cause than a vivacious imagination. It veracity : 
is the father's affair to see to it that they second step in 

•^ Character- 

break off this habit, for mothers usually con- formation. 

sider it a thing of no, or at least very small, importance ; 
they even look upon it as a flattering proof of the su- 
perior talents and capacities of their children. Here is 
the place to make use of shame, for here the child 
comprehends it perfectly. The blush of shame be- 
trays us when we lie, but it is not always a proof of 
lying. We often blush at the shamelessness with which 
another accuses us of wrong. Under no condition 
should the attempt be made to exact the truth from 
children by punishment ; their lying will necessarily en- 
tail its own damaging consequences, for which they may 
then be punished. The withholding of respect is the 
only suitable punishment for lying. 

Punishments may also be divided into negative and 
positive. The first should be inflicted in cases of idle- 
ness or immorality ; as, for example, lying:, 

•^ ' ' 1" ' J &? Punishment: 

bemg disobligmg and quarrelsome. But the Negative and 
positive punishments are for ill-natured Positive, 

naughtiness. Above all things one should avoid treas- 
uring up spite against the child. 

88. A third feature in the character of the child must 
be sociability. He must have friendships with others, 
and not always live for himself alone. Many teachers, 
it is true, are opposed to this in school ; but that is 
unjust. Children should prepare themselves for the 



196 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

sweetest of all the pleasures of life. But teachers 
should not prefer one pupil above another because of 
Sociability: his talcuts, but Only bccausc of his character ; 
chlracTe^r- ^^ for otherwise there arises jealousy, which is 
formation. incompatible with friendship. 

Children should also be candid, and their faces should 
be as serene as the sun.^ A happy heart alone is capa- 
ble of finding pleasure in the good. A religion which 
makes men gloomy is false ; for they should serve God 
with a joyous heart and not from compulsion. The 
happy heart must not always be held strictly under the 
restraint of the school ; for then it will soon be destroyed. 
When it has freedom, it recovers itself again. Those 
plays wherein the heart brightens and the child en- 
deavors always to surpass his comrades are serviceable 
for this end. Then the soul becomes serene once more. 

89. Many people think that their youth was the hap- 
piest and the most agreeable time of their whole life ; but 
Limitations of ^his is Certainly not so. It is the hardest 
Childhood. period, because one is under discipline, and 
can seldom have a true friend and less rarely freedom. 
Horace has already said, Multa tulit, fecitque puer^ sudavit 
et alsit} 

^ ' ' Children, especially girls, must be early accustomed to frank, 
unforced smiling ; for the cheerfulness of the features is gradually 
imprinted internally, and begets a disposition to joyousness, 
friendliness, and sociability which this approach to the virtue of 
good-will early prepares." — Anthropology, etc., Hartenstein, vii. 
pp. 585, 586. 

^ The boy has endured much and done much, 
He has sweated and he has frozen. 



THE TREATISE 197 

90. Children should be instructed only in such things 
as are suitable for their age. Many parents are glad 
when their children can talk precociously ; 

^ '' Education 

but nothing usually comes of such children. according to 
A child should have only the wisdom of a ^^®" 

child. He must not be a blind imitator. But one who 
is supplied with precocious maxims is entirely beyond 
the limitations of his years, and he simply imitates, 
mimics.^ He should have only a child's understand- 
ing, and not be in evidence too soon. Such a one 
will never become a man of intelligence and serene 
understanding. It is just as intolerable to see a boy 
wishing to follow all the fashions ; for example, to curl 
his hair, to wear handfrills, and even to carry a snuff- 
box. He thus acquires an affected air, which does not 
beseem a child. Polite society is a burden to him, and 
manliness is finally completely lacking in him. For this 
very reason should his vanity be counteracted very 
early ; or, more properly speaking, he must not be 
given occasion to become vain. But this happens when 
very young children are told how beautiful they are, 
how charmingly this or that finery becomes them, or 
when this is promised and given to them as a reward. 
Finery is not suitable for children. They should regard 
their neat and simple clothing merely as indispensable 
needs. But parents themselves should attach no value 
to these things, and should avoid all self-admiration; 
for here, as elsewhere, example is all-powerful, and 
strengthens or destroys good teaching. 

1 Cf. Section 74. 



198 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

91. Practical education includes : 

(a) Skill, 

Elements of ^ ^ 

Practical (6) Worldly wisdom, and 

Education. / \ -^r im 

(c) Morality. 
It is essential that skill be thorough and not transitory. 
An appearance of the possession of a knowledge of things 
which cannot afterwards be realized must not be assumed. 
Thoroughness should be a quality of skilfulness, and 
gradually become a habit of the mind. It is the essential 
point in the character of a man. Skill is essential to talent. 

92. Worldly wisdom consists in the art of applying our 
skill to man, — that is, to use men for our own ends. To 
Worldly acquire this, many conditions are necessary. 
Wisdom. II jg really the last thing to be acquired ; but, 
according to its worth, it occupies the second place. 

If the child is to be given over to worldly wisdom, he 
must dissemble, make himself impenetrable, and yet be 
able to penetrate others. Especially must he conceal 
his character. The art of external appearance is pro- 
priety, and this art must be possessed. It is difficult to 
penetrate others, but it is necessary to understand this 
art and at the same time to make one's self impene- 
trable. This includes dissimulation, — that is, concealing 
one's faults, and the above-mentioned external appear- 
ance. Dissimulation is not always hypocrisy, and can 
sometimes be permitted, but it borders very closely upon 
immorality. Simulation is a desperate means. ^ Worldly 

1 The extreme and almost unethical position taken here in the 
Lecture-Notes is fairly saved by the following passage in the Critique 
of Pure Reason (1781) : 



THE TREATISE 199 

wisdom requires that a man shall not fly into a sudden 
passion ; but neither must he be altogether too indo- 
lent. Thus one must not be vehement, but yet strenu- 
ous, which is not the same thing. A strenuous (strenuus) 
man is he who has pleasure in willing. It is a question 
of the moderation of the emotions. Worldly wisdom is 
a matter of temperament.^ 

93. MoraHty refers to character. Sustine et abstine^ 
is the best preparation for a wise moderation. If one 

" There is a certain form of dishonesty in human nature which, 
after all, like everything that comes from nature, must contain ele- 
ments of good, — namely, a disposition to conceal one's true feel- 
ings and to make a show of certain assumed feelings which are 
regarded as good and honorable. Most certainly men have, by 
means of this inclination to dissemble, as well as to assume an 
advantageous appearance, not merely civilized themselves, but to 
a certain extent gradually moralized themselves ; since one could 
not penetrate the varnish of propriety, respectability, and modesty, 
he therefore found, in the supposedly true examples of goodness 
seen round about him, a school for his self-improvement. How- 
ever, this disposition to represent himself as being better than he 
is, and to express sentiments which he does not possess, merely 
serves provisionally, as it were, to bring man out of rawness, and 
to permit him at least to take on the manner of goodness, as he 
knows it ; later, when real principles are once developed and 
established in his mode of thought, every form of falsehood must 
be powerfully combated, because otherwise it destroys the heart 
and does not permit good sentiments to come up amid fhe rank 
weeds of fair appearance.'' — Hartenstein, iii. p. 498. 

^ That type of feehng which is, and in so far as it is, dependent 
upon our physical constitution was held by Kant to be " tempera- 
ment. ' ' 

2 Bear and forbear. 



200 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

desire to form a good character, he must begin by 

banishing the passions. Man must so train himself that 

his incHnations do not arrow into passions, 

Morality. ® ^ 

and he must learn to do without that which 
is denied him. Sustine means : suffer and accustom 
yourself to endure. 

Courage and inclination are necessary in order to learn 
to do without something. One must become accus- 
tomed to refusals, opposition, etc. 

Sympathy is a matter of temperament. Children 
must be kept from a yearning, languishing sympathy. 
Sympathy Sympathy is really sensibility ; it is in keep- 
condemned. [^^ Qj^jy ^yj^jj ^ character which is sensitive. 
It is also different from compassion ; it is an evil which 
consists in merely bewailing a thing. Children should 
be given some pocket-money with which they could do 
good to the needy ; then it would be seen whether or 
not they are compassionate. When they are generous 
only with the money of their parents, this quality 
perishes.^ 

^ Kant has hardly given a proper place to sympathy as a means 
of great pedagogic importance, even empirically regarded. In 
Herbart's scheme, for example, sympathy is made one of the car- 
dinal features in educational growth. Kant here apparently ex- 
cludes sympathy as a constituent of character and morality, because 
psychologically he regarded it as merely a derivative form of the 
feeling of pleasure-pain, and therefore as having no connection with 
will. In his later writings he gave a higher place to this form of feel- 
ing, as may be seen in the following selections from the Metaphysics 
of Morals, Ft. II., Hartenstein, vii. pp. 264-266 : 

' ' Sympathy (sympathia 7noralis) is indeed a sensuous feeling of 
pleasure or displeasure (hence aesthetic) with respect to the enjoy- 



THE TREATISE 201 

The maxim festina lente ^ indicates a continuous ac- 
tivity ; one must greatly hasten in order to learn much, 
— that is, festina; but things must also be 
learned thoroughly, which requires time, — 
that is, lente. It is a question which is preferable : to 
have a great range of information or only a small range, 
but one which is thorough. It is better to know little, 
but to know this little well, than to know much and to 
know it superficially ; for, in the latter case, the shal- 
lowness of one's knowledge will finally become patent. 
But the child cannot tell under what circumstances he 
may need this or that knowledge, and, therefore, it is 
best that he know thoroughly a little of everything, 
otherwise he will impose upon and dazzle others with 
his show of learning. 

94. The final thing in practical education is the foun- 
dation of character.^ This consists in the firm resolu- 

ment, or the pain, of others (fellow-feeling, sympathetic sensation), 
sensibihty to which has been implanted in man by nature. But 
to employ sympathy as a means for the advancement of active and 
rational kindness is a special, although only a conditional duty, 
under the name of humanity (humanitas) ; because here man is 
regarded not merely as a rational being, but also as an animal 
endowed with reason. . . . 

"But although to have sympathy with others is not in itself a 
duty, yet active interest in their fate is duty, and hence to culti- 
vate to this end the sympathetic, natural (aesthetic) feelings in our- 
selves, and to employ them as so many means for interest, from 
moral principles and feeling appropriate to those principles, is at 
least indirect duty." 

^ Make haste slowly. ^ See Selection X. 



202 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

tion of the will to do something, and then in the actual 
execution of it. Vir propositi tenax^^ says Plorace, and 
Firmness of that is a good character. If, for example, 
w^"- I have promised anything, I must keep my 

promise, even if it does me harm. The man who forms 
a certain resolution, but does not carry it out, can no 
longer trust himself. If, for example, having taken the 
resolution always to arise early to study,^ or to do this 
or that, or to take a walk, one then excuse himself in 
the spring-time because the mornings are still too cold 
and it might be injurious to him ; in summer because it 
is so favorable for sleeping, and sleep is particularly 
agreeable to him, and thus from day to day defer the 
execution of his resolution, he finally ends by destroying 
all confidence in himself. 

That which is contrary to morals should be excluded 
from resolutions of this kind. The character of a wicked 
man is very bad, its chief quality being its perversity ; 
yet we admire seeing him executing his resolutions and 
being firm, although one would prefer to see him display 
an equal persistency in good conduct. 

There is not much to esteem in him who is constantly 
deferring the performance of his purposes. The so- 
called future conversion is of this sort. The man who 
has always been vicious, and who wishes to be converted 
in an instant, cannot possibly succeed ; for only a miracle 
could make him instantly like one who has conducted 

^ A man firm in his resolutions. 

^ This is another little personal allusion. For years his servant 
uniformly called him a few minutes before five o'clock every morn- 
ing, and without exception, the story runs, Kant obeyed the call. 



THE TREATISE 203 

himself well during his whole life and has never had 
other than upright thoughts. For the same reason, 
there is nothing to be expected from pilgrimages, casti- 
gations, and fastings, since it is impossible to conceive 
how pilgrimages and other practices can contribute any- 
thing towards making, at a moment's notice, a virtuous 
man out of a vicious one. 

What shall it profit for uprightness and improvement 
of character to fast during the day only to eat so much 
more during the night, or to inflict a penance on the 
body which can contribute nothing to a change of soul ? 

95. In order to establish a moral character in children, 
we must note the following : 

The duties which they have to fulfil must be shown 
them as much as possible by examples and regulations. 
The duties which the child has to perform 

^ Doctnne of 

are none other than the ordinary ones to- Duties m 

wards himself and towards others ; they Pedagogy. 
must therefore be drawn from the nature of things. 
Hence we have to consider more closely at this point, — 

(a) Duties towards one's self; 

(6) Duties towards others.^ 

(a) Duties towards one's self. These do not consist 
in procuring fine clothing, giving splendid dinners, etc., 
although neatness must be aimed at in everything. Nor 
do they consist in the attempt to satisfy one's desires 



^ This is the division of duties which Kant makes in the second 
part of the Metaphysics of Morals (1797), Hartenstein, vii. pp. 202, 
217. 



204 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

and inclinations ; for, on the contrary, one should be 
very temperate and abstemious, and maintain a cer- 
Human tain dignity within himself which ennobles 

Dignity. jjjj^-^ above all creatures, and it is his duty 

not to deny in his own person this dignity of humanity/ 

But we do deny the dignity of humanity when, for ex- 
ample, we become addicted to drink, commit unnatural 
sins, practise all manner of immoderation, etc., all of which 
degrade man far below the animal. No less is it contrary 
to the dignity of humanity for a man to cringe before 
others, or to overload them with compliments, in the 
hope of ingratiating himself by such undignified conduct. 

The child should be made sensible of this human 
dignity in his own person ; for example, in the case of 
uncleanness, which, to say the least, is not befitting 
humanity. But the child can also really degrade himself 
below the dignity of humanity by lying, since he is al- 
ready able to think and to communicate his thoughts to 
others. Lying makes man an object of universal scorn, 
and is a means of robbing himself of the esteem for, and 
confidence in, himself which every one ought to possess. 

(6) Duties towards others. Reverence and. respect 
for the rights of men should be instilled into the child 
at a very early age, and he should be made to put them 
into practice. If, for example, a child meets another 
child poorer than himself, and haughtily pushes him out 

^ As may be traced in the introductory Lecture-Notes (see Section 
15), and as clearly elaborated in his ethical theory, "the dignity 
of humanity" is a highly specialized and important phrase. It is 
the great objective content of conduct under the subjective law of 
" duty." It is thus not a trite and meaningless expression. 



THE TREATISE 205 

of his way, or gives him a blow, one should not say 
to him, " Do not do that, it hurts him ; but be compas- 
sionate, he is a poor child," etc. ; but he in turn should 
be treated just as haughtily and forcefully, because his 
conduct is contrary to the rights of humanity. But 
children do not have any generosity. This can easily 
be seen, for example, when parents command their 
child to give half of his lunch to another, without 
being promised so much the more ; either they do not 
obey, or very seldom and unwillingly. It is also useless 
to speak much about generosity to the child, since he has 
as yet no possessions of his own. 

96. Many writers have entirely omitted, or have 
falsely expounded, like Crugott,' that section of ethics 
which contains the doctrine of duties towards one's self. 
Duty towards one's self consists, as has been said above, 
in preserving the dignity of humanity in one's own per- 
son. A man censures himself when he keeps the idea 
of humanity in mind. In this idea he finds an original 
with which he compares himself. As he grows older, 
and the sexual instincts begin to develop, then is the 
critical moment in which the idea of human dignity is 
alone capable of holding the young man within bounds. 
The youth should early be warned as to how he must 
guard himself against this or that. 

97. There is something that is almost entirely 
lacking in our schools, which, however, would greatly 
promote the formation of uprightness in children, — 

1 A German theologian (1725-1790). 



206 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

namely, a catechism of right} It should contain, in pop- 
ular form, cases of conduct which are met with in ordi- 
A Moral ^ary life, and which always naturally call up 

Catechism. \^q qucstiou whether something is or is not 
right. If, for instance, some one, who ought to pay his 
creditors to-day, is touched at the sight of a needy person 
and gives him the sum which he is owing and should now 
pay, — is that right ? No ! It is wrong ; for I must be 
free before I can be generous. In giving money to the 
poor I perform a meritorious deed, but in paying my 
debt I do only that which I ought to do. Further, 
can necessity ever justify a lie ? No ! There is not a 
single conceivable case in which it is excusable, and 
least of all before children, who would look upon every 
trifling thing as a necessity and would often allow them- 
selves to lie. If there were such a book, an hour each 
day could be devoted very usefully in teaching children 
to know and to take to heart the right of men, — this 
apple of God's eye on earth.^ 

1 By " right, ' ' Kant means the good considered from the view- 
point of human relations. Kant was quite attached to this idea 
of a catechism, as may be seen in the translation of the model for 
the same which he prepared in Selection XL 

It is interesting to note that he here makes, perhaps, the only 
definite recommendation with respect to the content of the school 
curriculum, — another instance of the complete ethical saturation 
of his educational theory. What he has to say in Section 70 may 
be regarded a^ a passing comment upon the school studies of his 
day. One need not marvel, therefore, at the proneness of our 
present-day subject-evaluaters and curriculum-makers to miss the 
point of Kant's contribution to education. 

' We no longer lack catechisms of rights and duties, and many 
of them are very useful. In many schools attention is already 



THE TREATISE 207 

98. As for the obligation of being benevolent, it is only 
an imperfect one.^ One should make children stout- 
hearted rather than effeminate, so that they 

' •' The Pedagogy 

shall not be too greatly affected by the mis- of Benevo- 
fortunes of others. Let them be filled, ^^°^^" 

not with sentiment, but with the idea of duty. Many 
persons, indeed, have become hard-hearted because, 
having formerly been compassionate, they often found 
themselves deceived. It is useless to attempt to make the 
meritorious side of an action intelligible to a child. Cler- 
gymen often commit the fault of representing benevolent 
deeds as something meritorious. Putting aside the fact 
that we can do no more than our duty with respect to 
God, it is nothing more than our duty to do good to the 
poor; for the unequal prosperity of men comes only 
from accidental circumstances. If I possess a fortune, I 
owe it to the fact that advantage was taken of them, 
which proved favorable either to me or to my predeces- 
sor, but my relation to the whole remains the same.^ 

99. A child's envy is aroused when he is constantly 
reminded to value himself according to the standard of 

given to this necessary part of instruction, but much remains to 
be done in order to realize Kant's fine idea. [A note by Rink,] 

* " Obligation" is a technical term in Kantian ethics, and means 
the great and prevailing characteristic of "duty," which is abso- 
lute and conditionless. Interest and prudence, for example, always 
" depend" upon something else ; but duty commands conduct with- 
out any hypothetical conditions; hence the "categorical impera- 
tive," the supreme formula of duty. 

"^ That is, ethical obligations are universal, and cannot find any 
limitation in external circumstances. 



208 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

others. He should, on the contrary, consider himself 
according to the ideas of his own reason.^ Humility, 
Envy and therefore, is nothing else than a comparison 
Humility in of oue's worth with moral perfection. The 
Christian religion, for example, makes man 
humble by leading him to compare himself with the 
highest model of perfection rather than by teaching 
humility directly. It is absurd to make humility con- 
sist in valuing one's self less than others : " See how such 
and such a child behaves," etc. To speak to children in 
such a manner produces only an ignoble turn of mind. 
When a man estimates his value according to others, he 
attempts either to lift himself above them or to diminish 
their worth. The latter is envy. When a person is en- 
vious, he tries to impute faults to another ; for, were the 
latter not there, there could be no comparison between 
him and one's self. A badly applied spirit of emulation 
produces only jealousy. The only case in which emula- 
tion could be of any use would be that of persuading 
another that a thing is practicable ; as, for example, if I 
require a certain task of a child and show him that 
others are able to do it. 

^ "Nothing could be more unfortunate for morality than to wish 
to derive it from examples. For every example of it which is pre- 
sented to me must itself be previously judged by principles of mo- 
rality, whether it is worthy to serve as an original example, — i.e., as 
a pattern ; but in nowise can it furnish supremely the concept of 
morality." — Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals, 
Hartenstein, iv. p. 256. 

See Section 95 and Selection XL, "Ethical Didactics," Section 
52, for Kant's conception of the weakness of example as a peda- 
gogical means. 



THE TREATISE 209 

In nowise must a child be permitted to put another 
to shame. One should endeavor to avoid all arrogance, 
which is based on mere advantages of fortune. At the 
same time the effort must be made to develop frankness 
in children. Frankness is a modest confidence in one's 
self. It places man in a position in which he can display 
all his talents in a proper manner. It is entirely differ- 
ent from impudence, which consists in indifference to- 
wards the judgment of others. 

100. All the desires of man are either formal (freedom 
and power) or material (related to an object) ; Desires and 
they are desires of opinion or of pleasure ; ^^^^' 

or, finally, they relate to the bare continuance of these 
two things as elements of happiness. 

The desires of the first kind are ambition, imperious- 
ness, and covetousness. The desires of the second kind 
are those of the pleasures of sex (voluptuousness), of 
things (luxurious living), or of society (taste for amuse- 
ment). The desires of the third kind, finally, are the love 
of life, of health, of ease (freedom from care in the future). 

The vices are those of malice, of baseness, or of nar- 
row-mindedness. To the first kind belong envy, in- 
gratitude, and malicious joy at the misfortune of others ; 
to the second kind belong injustice, perfidy (falseness), 
dissoluteness, as well in the dissipation of one's goods 
as of health (intemperance) and of honor. The vices of 
the third kind are uncharitableness, stinginess, indo- 
lence (effeminacy).^ 

^ See Anthropology, etc., Sections 78-84, Hartenstein, vii. pp. 
686-597, where Kant presents rather an exhaustive account of 

14 



210 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

101. The virtues are those of merit, of mere obliga- 
tion, or of innocence. To the first kind belong magna- 
nimity (in conquering one's self as well in 
revenge as in the love of ease and of covet- 

ousness), beneficence, and self-control ; to the second, 
honesty, propriety, and peaceableness ; to the third, 
finally, faithfulness, modesty, and temperance.^ 

102. We now come to the question whether man is 
by nature morally good or bad. He is neither ; for he is 
Man by Nature by nature uot a moral being at all ; he be- 
non-Morai. comes a moral being only when his reason 
raises itself to the concepts of duty and of law.^ It can 
be said, however, that he has originally impulses for all 
vices, for he has inclinations and instincts Avhich incite 
him, although his reason impels him in the opposite 
direction at the same time. He can, therefore, become 
morally good only by means of virtues, — that is, by self- 
restraint, — although he can be innocent as long as his 
passions slumber. 

human passions. Because of this thoroughness, Herder called him 
"the great observer in the pathology of our souls." With some 
slight deviations, the divisions in the Anthropology are the same as 
those presented here. 

^ It is something to cause remark, that Kant seems to be satis- 
fied in his Notes with a mere enumeration of the vices and the vir- 
tues, without going into the pedagogical question of how the former 
can be eliminated and the latter perpetuated in the growth of the 
individual. 

^ There is great difficulty, if not impossibility, in removing the 
contradiction between this statement and the theoretical doctrine 
of transcendental freedom. It also does violence to some early 
views in these Notes. (Cf. Selection X.) 



THE TREATISE 211 

Vices result, for the most part, from the fact that civ- 
ilization does violence to nature ; and yet our destina- 
tion as men is to emerge from the raw state of nature 
in which we are nothing more than animals. Perfect art 
returns to nature. 

103. Everything in education depends upon one thing: 
that good principles be established and be made in- 
telligible and acceptable to children. They 

must learn to substitute abhorrence of that of Good Princi- 
which is revolting and absurd for the ab- ^^^^' 

horrence of hatred ; fear of their own conscience for the 
external contempt of men and divine punishment ; self- 
estimation and internal dignity for the opinions of others ; 
mner worth of action and conduct for words and emo- 
tions ; understanding for feeling ; finally, joyousness and 
serene piety for sullen, timorous, and gloomy devotion. 

But, above all things, children should be guarded from 
estimating too highly merita fortune^} 

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 2 

104. When we come to consider the religious education 
of children, the first question is, whether it is possible 
to inculcate religious ideas upon young chil- „ ,. . 

° X ./ o Religion versus 

dren. This is a point in pedagogy over Theoiogj^in 

which there has been much dispute. The 

concepts of religion always presuppose a theology. Now, 

^ The merits of fortune. 

' Religious education, it is hardly necessary to note, is not made 
an organic factor in education (see Section 72), but appears as a 



212 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

would it be possible to teach a theology to young people 
who, far from having a knowledge of the world, do not 
know even themselves ? Would youth, which does not 
yet know what duty is, be capable of comprehending an 
immediate duty to God? This much is certain, that if it 
were possible so to arrange that children should witness 
no act of adoration towards the Supreme Being, and 
that they should not even hear the name of God, the 
proper order of proceeding would be to lead their at- 
tention first to final causes and to that which is fitting 
for man, to exercise their judgment, to instruct them in 
the ordei' and beauty of the works of natiu^e^ then to add 
an extended knowledge of the structure of the universe, 
and, finally, to reveal to them the idea of a Supreme 
Being, a Lawgiver. But, since this is not possible in the 
present state of society, the result would be, if one de- 
sired not to teach them anything about God until later, 
and yet they heard His name mentioned and saw demon- 
strations of devotion to Him, that this would produce in 
them either indifference or perverted ideas, as, for ex- 
ample, fear of divine power. Now, since it is necessary 
to prevent this idea from nestling in the fantasy of chil- 
dren, the inculcation of religious concepts must be 

subtopic in moral education. In the rules laid down under this 
topic, Kant seems to reflect more or less influence from Rousseau 
on the same theme. At the same time it must be observed that 
Kant does not advocate that a one-sided moral education should 
replace all religious instruction, as the experiments in French 
schools have attempted during the last two decades. Kant simply 
argues against dogma in favor of duty as having prime pedagogical 
importance. 



THE TREATISE 213 

attempted very early. But this should not be an affair 
of memory, imitation, and pure mimicry ; but the way 
which one selects must always be in harmony with 
nature. Children will comprehend, even without having 
the abstract concepts of duty, of obligations, of good or 
evil conduct, that there is a law of duty ; that it is not 
the agreeable, the useful, and the like which determine 
it, but something universal which does not adjust itself 
according to the fancies of men. But the teacher him- 
self must develop this concept. 

At first everything should be attributed to nature, and 
then nature itself attributed to God ; how, for example, 
in the first place, everything was arranged for the con- 
servation of the species and their equilibrium, but also 
remotely for man that he be able to make himself 
happy. 

The best means for first making clear the idea of God 
is to employ the analogy of a father under whose care 
we are placed ; from this the transition to the idea of 
the unity of man, as in a family, can happily be 
made.^ 



^ Kant does not confuse the pedagogy of religion with the peda- 
gogy of morals, although the former may be subordinated to the 
latter. In the "Ethical Didactics" (Selection XI. pp. 280, 285) he 
explicitly states tliat the moral catechism and the religious cate- 
chism must not be mixed. 

It should also be noted that his suggestions here as to the founda- 
tion of religious education, aside from their theology, have received 
full justification, if they have not even borne fruit directly, in the 
later history of pedagogy. Fichte was the first to carry out Kant's 
idea of the dependence of religion upon morality. Schleier- 



214 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

105. But, then, what is religion? Religion is the law 
in us, in so far as it is imprinted upon us by a legislator 
Religion and ^^d a judge ; ^ it is morality applied to the 
Morality. knowledge of God. If religion is not united 

with morality, it becomes nothing more than an endeavor 
to gain divine favor. The singing of praises, prayers, 
and church-going should only serve to give man new 
strength and new courage for improvement, or be the 
expression of a heart inspired by the idea of duty. 
These things are only preparations for good works, but 
not good works themselves, and one cannot please the 
Supreme Being otherwise than by becoming a better 
person. 

With the child it is necessary to commence with the 
law which he has in himself. Man is contemptible in 
his own eyes when he is vicious. This contempt springs 
from his own nature, and not from the fact that God has 
forbidden evil ; for the legislator is not necessarily the 
author of the law. Thus a prince can forbid thievery 
without being regarded on this account as the author of 
the prohibition of theft. From this man learns to under- 
stand that his good conduct alone makes him worthy of 



macher's pedagogy of religion, as well as his theology, was based 
on the feeling of dependence, here so well described by Kant. 
And on downward through the Herbartian movement in its suc- 
cessive stages this point of departure for religious instruction has 
been steadily maintained, until it is now fully accredited even by 
the ' ' higher criticism' ' or the science of religion. 

* See Selection XIII. "Religion (subjectively considered) is the 
knowledge of all our duties as divine commands." — Religion 
within the Limits of Mere Reason (1793), Hartenstein, vi. p. 262. 



THE TREATISE 215 

blessedness. The divine law must appear at the same 
time as a natural law, for it is not arbitrary. Religion, 
therefore, is a part of all morality. 

But one must not begin with theology. That religion 
which is founded merely upon theology can never con- 
tain anything moral. There will arise from it only fear, 
on the one hand, and selfish purposes and sentiments, on 
the other, which will produce nothing more than a super- 
stitious cult. Morality must precede, theology follow, 
and then we have religion. 

106. The law in us is called conscience} Conscience 
is, properly speaking, the application of our actions to 
this law. The reproaches of conscience will 

Conscience and 

be without effect if it be not considered as Religious 

the representative of God, who has His lofty Education, 
seat above us, but who has also established a tribunal in 
us. On the other hand, if religion is not joined with a 
moral conscientiousness, it is without effect. Religion 
without moral conscientiousness is a superstitious wor- 
ship. People imagine that they serve God when, for 
example, they praise Him and extol His power and His 
wisdom, without thinking how they can fulfil the divine 
laws ; yes, without even knowing and searching out His 
power and His wisdom, etc. These praises are an opiate 
for the conscience of such people and a pillow on which 
they hope to sleep tranquilly.^ 

* See Selection XIII. , on Conscience. 

' Many of these strictures upon the content of religious instruc- 
tion doubtless reflect Kant's critical memory of the excessive pie- 
tistic practices in the school which he attended in his youth. 



216 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

107. Children cannot comprehend all religious con- 
cepts, but a few, notwithstanding, must be imparted to 
,, ^ . . them ; only these should be more negative 

Method in ' "^ *^ 

Religious than positive. To make children repeat 

Pedagogy. formulas is of no use, and produces only a 
false concept of piety. True reverence consists in acting 
according to God's will, and it is this that children must 
be taught. Care must be taken with children, as with 
one's self, that the name of God be not so often mis- 
used. Merely to use it in congratulation, even with 
pious intentions, is a profanation. The thought of God 
should fill man with reverence every time he speaks 
His name, and he should therefore seldom use it, and 
never frivolously. The child must learn to feel respect 
for God as the master of his life and of the whole world ; 
further, as the protector of man ; and, finally, as his 
judge. It is said that Newton^ always stopped and 
meditated a moment whenever he spoke the name of 
God. 

108. By a unified elucidation of the concepts of God 
and of duty the child learns all the better to respect the 

care which God takes for His creatures, and 
is thus restrained from the inclination for 
destruction and cruelty which expresses itself so much 
in the torture of small animals. At the same time, 
youth should be taught to discover the good in evil ; for 
example, animals of prey and insects are models of 



* Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727), the English mathematician and 
physicist. 



THE TREATISE 217 

cleanliness and industry ; wicked men make us think of 
the law ; birds which seek worms are protectors of the 
garden, etc. 

109. One should also give children some concepts of 
the Supreme Being, so that whenever they see others 
pray, etc., they may know to whom they are 
praying and why they do it. But these con- Religious 

cepts should be very few in number, and, as instruction. 
already said, only negative. One should, however, begin 
to inculcate these in the earliest years, but at the same 
time guard against children estimating men according to 
their religious practices ; for, in spite of its varieties, there 
is, after all, everywhere unity of religion. 



CONCLUSION 

110. In closing, we will add a few remarks as to the 
course to be pursued with youth just entering adolescence. 
„^ „ ^ About this time the boy begfins to make cer- 

The Pedagogy ^ ^ 

of tain distinctions which he has not made 

o esceiice. j^gfore. First, the distinction of sex. Nature 
has thrown a veil of secrecy over this matter, as though 
it were something indecent and merely an animal need. 
But nature has tried to combine it with every possible 
kind of morality. Even savages conduct themselves in 
this matter with a sort of modesty and reserve. Chil- 
dren sometimes ask their elders inquisitive questions 
about it ; for example, as to where babies come from. 
But they are easily satisfied, either when given answers 
which mean nothing or when told that they are asking 
foolish questions. 

The development of these inclinations in the boy is 
mechanical, and, as is the case with all instincts, they 
are developed with no knowledge of an object.^ Thus 
it is impossible to keep the adolescent in ignorance and 
in the innocence which is inseparable from it. Silence 
on the subject only makes matters worse. We can see 

^ ' ' Next to the instinct for nourishment, by means of which 
nature preserves each individual, the instinct of sex, by which it 
provides for the preservation of each species, is the most impor- 
tant." — The Probable Beginnings of Human History (1786), Harten- 
stein, iv. p. 318. 
218 



CONCLUSION 219 

that in the education of our ancestors. In our times it 
is rightly assumed that the boy must be talked to openly, 
plainly, and positively. This is, indeed, a delicate point, 
because one does not like to look upon it as a matter of 
publicity. But all will be well if one is sympathetic 
with the boy's inclinations. 

The thirteenth or fourteenth year is usually the time 
when the sexual instinct is developed in a boy. (When 
it occurs earlier, children have probably been debauched, 
or corrupted by bad examples.) By that time their 
judgment is formed, and nature has prepared them for 
the time when they can be spoken to about these things. 

111. Nothing so weakens the mind, as well as the 
body, of man as that kind of voluptuousness which is 
directed to himself, and it is entirely op- ^^^^^^^^^^ 
posed to man's nature. This also must thesexm- 
not be concealed from the adolescent. It ^ '^^ ^" °^^* 
should be represented to him in all its abominableness, 
and he should be told how it renders one useless for 
the propagation of the race, how it destroys the physical 
powers, how it results in premature old age, how it 
harms the mind, etc. 

The impulses to this habit can be escaped by contin- 
uous occupation, which keeps one from spending more 
time ui bed and in sleeping than is necessary. Thoughts 
about it can be banished from the mind by these occu- 
pations ; for, so long as the subject is even in the imag- 
ination, it gnaws at one's vital powers. If one directs 
his instincts towards the other sex, he meets with some 
resistance ; but if directed towards himself, they can be 



220 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

gratified at any moment. The physical effect is ex- 
tremely harmful, but the moral results are worse still. 
Here one crosses the bounds of nature, and desire 
rages without ceasing because it finds no real satisfac- 
tion. Teachers of grown adolescents have asked the 
question, as to whether it is well to allow boys to mingle 
with the opposite sex. If one or the other must be 
chosen, this course is by all means the better. In one 
instance he acts contrary to nature, but not here. 
Nature means him to be a man, as soon as he attains 
his majority, and perpetuate his species ; but the needs of 
our cultivated state sometimes make it impossible for him 
to educate his children.^ Herein he sins against the social 
order. Thus it is best — yes, it is his duty — to wait until 
he is in a position to be married. In so doing, he acts 
not only like a good man, but also like a good citizen. 

The adolescent should learn early to have a proper 
respect for the other sex, to earn their esteem by his 
uncorrupt activity, and thus to press forward to the 
noble prize of a happy marriage. 

112. A second distinction which the adolescent begins 
to make about the time he enters society consists in 
Society and ^^^ knowledge of class distinctions and the ine- 
Education. quality of men. As a child he must not be 
allowed to notice these things. He should not even 
be permitted to give orders to servants. If he sees that 
his parents give them orders, he can always be told, 
*'We give them bread, and that is why they obey us; 

' Cf. Section 26. 



CONCLUSION 221 

you do not do so, and therefore they are not obliged to 
obey you." Children know nothing about this differ- 
ence, if parents themselves do not tell them of it. The 
youth should be shown that this inequality of men is an 
arrangement which has arisen because one person has 
attempted to get the advantage of another. The con- 
sciousness of the equality of man within civic inequality 
can gradually be awakened, 

113. The youth must be accustomed to estimate 
himself absolutely, and not according to others. A 
high estimation of others in that which does 

^ Various Appli- 

not constitute the worth of man is vanity, cations of the 
The youth must also be taught to have con- ^^^^^i^^^- 
scientiousness in all things, and must strive not only to 
appear, but to be. Habituate him to see to it that, when- 
ever he has once adopted a resolution, it does not be- 
come a vain one. Much rather should one make no 
resolution and leave the thing in doubt. Teach him 
to be contented with external circumstances and patient 
in labor (sustine et ahstine)^ and teach him moderation 
in pleasures. When one does not desire pleasures 
merely, but will also be patient in work, he becomes 
a useful member of the community, and protects him- 
self against ennui. 

The youth should also be exhorted to joyousness and 
good-humor. Light-heartedness naturally results from a 
conscience without reproach. Recommend an equality 
of mood to him. By practice one can always succeed 
in making himself an agreeable member of society. 

One must accustom himself to look upon many things 



222 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

as duty. An action should be of value to me, not be- 
cause it accords with my inclinations, but because I fulfil 
my duty in performing it. 

Love for others, and afterwards cosmopolitan senti- 
ments, should be developed. In our soul there is some- 
thing which causes us to be interested (a) in ourselves, 
(6) in those with whom we have been brought up, and 
(c) in the summum bonum. Children must be made 
familiar with this interest, that they may warm their 
souls with it. They should rejoice over the good of the 
world, even if it is not to the advantage of their father- 
land or to their own profit. 

The child must be so trained as to attach only a 
mediocre value to the enjoyment of the pleasures of 
life. The childish fear of death will then disappear. 
Young men should be shown that enjoyment does not 
give that wliich it promises. 

It is necessary, finally, to call his attention to the ne- 
cessity of ordering his own accounts daily, so that at the 
end of life he may be able to compute its value. 



SELECTIONS ON EDUCATION 

FROM 

KANT'S OTHER WRITINGS 



SELECTIONS 



I 

PEDAGOGICAL FRAGMENTS' 

1. Skim, is llic lirsl, but iiol llic <-lii<'J' lliiii^,' lo bo Ibougbt of. 
So is breiul Ibc lirsl, but. nol. Ilic cbicr lliiiiK b' !»•' 
coiisi(b*r(Ml ill iiiarriage. Tlio lirsl lliiiig is Ibal wliicb 

coiifains iho. nocossary condition of the aim, but Ibo aim ilsi^lf is 
of altsobilc iiii|)()rlan('(». 

2. Man must bo disciplinod bocnuso ho is nnlurnlly wild, and 

tauj^dit bocaus(^ b(^ is raw. Oidy in Ibo ordor of natnn' is bo j?oo<l ; 

in the: moral oidor bo is bad. llo musi bo dovolo|iod 

• . • I II II- 1 I r DlNclpline. 

mlo virliio. Ills (Mluc.aiion is not moroly negative. 

Ho must fool restraint bocauso h(^ will bo subject to civil restraint. 

hv i)rou^dit up free? He must bo drilled, trained (upri^^dd, tjait). 

3. The child must bo brought u|) free (that ho allow others b) be 

free). Ho must b^arn to ondur«^ the n'slraint to which freedom 

subiecis ilscdf for its own preservation (experience 

• , r.M , , Training, 

no subordination to his command). I bus Iw must 

bo disciplinod. This pr«M',od(^s instruction. Training must con- 
tinue without interruption. He must learn to do without things 



' I ba,V(! iiuiiib«M-ed Ibi'so I''iagmonls lo aid in facilitating r<'fi!r- 
ence b) them and to lot each Fragment stand out indoixuidontly. 
FragiiKMits 1 b) 18 inclusive! an; Vogt's sidoction {op. cU., pp. 
115-118), chi(>(ly from Erdmann's Kant's RrJkctUms on Anthro- 
pology. Fragments 19 to G2 have been selected from Hartenstein, 
viii. pp. 609-644. 

16 226 



226 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

and to be cheerful about it. He must not be obliged to dissimu- 
late, he must acquire immediate horror of lies, must learn so to 
respect the rights of men that they become an insurmountable 
wall for him. His instruction must be more negative. He 
must not learn religion before he knows morality. He must be 
refined, but not spoiled (pampered). He must learn to speak 
frankly, and must assume no false shame. Before adolescence he 
must not learn tine manners : thoroughness is the chief thing. 
Thus he is crude longer, but earlier useful and capable. 

4. Both sexes must bo educated and disciplined. Men need the 
former for society more than women do. It is worth while to ex- 
amine the important opinion of Rousseau that the 
cultivation by education of the character of girls 

would have the greatest influence on the male sex and upon morals 
generally. At present girls are merely trained to good manners, 
but they are not educated to good morals and modes of thought : 
religion : honor, which is directed to that which others, what even 
one single pei-son thinks. 

5. Until we shall have studied feminine nature better, it is best 
to leave the education of daughters to their mothers, and to let 

them ofT from books. It is not only natural, but 
proper to be polite, yielding, and mild towards 
beauty and youth, for it is honorable to be capable of being in- 
fluenced by gentle impressions, and the roughness of gross force 
is hardly praiseworthy. 

6. "Women are much more artistic, finer, and more regular when 
they resign themselves to the bent of their sex than are men ; 

moreover, thev have the intelligence to form this bent 
Woman. • . , , . 

by reason. Thus, woman requires much less train- 
ing and education, also less instruction, than man : and defects in 
her disposition would be less noticeable if she had more educa- 
tion, although a scheme for it which would agree with the destiny 
of her sex has not yet been invented. Her education is not in- 
struction, but guidance. She must know men rather than books. 
Honor is her greatest virtue, domesticitv her merit. 



SELECTIONS 227 

7. Fathers are too indulgent towards their daughters, niothei-s 
towards their sons. Each must discipHne his own sex. 

S. It is a question how tar education and instruction must l)e 
mechanical, and where cuUivation must take place by means of 
concepts. Cultivation presupposes concepts. As 
speech is learned mechanically, so is arithmetic, 
also history, but still according to a plan formed by the under- 
standing. Morality and religion must be treated logically. 

9. Good and strong will. Mechanism must precede science 
(learning). Also in morals and religion? Too much discipline 
makes one narrow and kills proficiency. Politeness belongs, not to 
discipline, but to polish, and thus comes last. 

10. It is not the sciences, but the public schools which polish. 

The sciences make one gentle and well-mannered, the univei-sities 

polish, court-life makes one genteel and courteous. 

„ ...... I ^ Manners. 

Rudeness comes from supposititious independence 

of all restraint for the sake of another. The coai-se man believes 

that another's displeasure can do him no harm. 

11. That man is good-hearted who is too good to do anything 
evil ; so far as the heart is concerned, the good is considered only 
as sensuously or as physically good ; but the same 

man can unhesitatingly do that which is morally bad. hoarteduess' 
A good-hearted man does not like to punish, he 
likes to do kindnesses : but perhaps he deceives and takes the part 
of a wretch who is in the wrong. It is very harmful to try to 
develop a good heart before a good character. The former is to 
be regarded as a small thing in comparison with the latter, but 
still it is not to be made contemptible. 

12. First form character, then a good character. The former is 
done by practice in a firm intention in the espousal of certain 
maxims after reflection. 



228 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

13. There must be a seed of every good thing in the character 
of men, otherwise no one can bring it out. Lacking that, analo- 
gous motives, honor, etc., are substituted. Parents are in the habit 
of looking out for the inclinations, for the talents and dexterity, 
perhaps for the disposition of their children, and not at all for 
their heart or character. 

14. Character means that the person derives his rules of con- 
duct from himself and from the dignity of humanity. Character 

is the common ruling principle in man in the use of 
his talents and attributes. Thus it is the nature of 
his will, and is good or bad. A man who acts without settled 
principles, with no uniformity, has no character. A man raay 
have a good heart and yet no character, because he is dependent 
upon impulses and does not act according to maxims. Firmness 
and unity of principle are essential to character. Character is 
developed late and supports itself at last ; good-nature is lost with 
a happy heart and sociability, especially in the case of women, — 
and they have but little character anyway. 

15. The more one presupposes that his own power will suffice 
him to realize what he desires the more practical is that desire. 
When I treat a man contemptuously, I can inspire him with no 
practical desire to appreciate my grounds of truth. When I treat 
any one as worthless, I can inspire him with no desire to do right. 

16. When beds are well shaken up, they quickly spread them- 
selves out again by their own elasticity. Old pillows retain 

impressions ; they are slow in resuming their former 
shape. This is the difference in the reception of 
strong impressions by young and by old people. The latter are 
sensitive to impressions, but lack elasticity. When the vital force 
begins to flow out again there is an agreeable languor present. 
One feels the preponderance of his vital forces ; but the old person 
feels their retardation, and the recovery is slow and hence un- 
noticeable. Old people do not need such emotions as hinder it. 

17. Young people love that which is full of feeling because they 
are frivolous, and their impressions are so elastic as to disappear 



SELECTIONS 229 

quickly, and also because they do not as yet know the value of 
having control over one's own feelings and of not exposing them to 
the power of others. 

18. Thinking people belong to a learned world which has unin- 
terrupted continuity, even though several intervening centuries 
may have dreamed (slept). In this way the ancients 

belong to the modern learned or thinking world, Unity of 

^ ° Learning, 

the modern to the ancient, — that is, if they make 

use of the views of the old world. Thus we must honor the old 

learned world and be thankful to the ancients. 



19. Moral regeneration. That is useful {mihi bonum) which 

really or in imagination satisfies needs. The desires which are 

necessary to man, through his nature, are natural 

desires. The man who has no other desires, and in The Man o 

Nature, 
no greater degree, than those of natural necessity is 

a man of nature, and his ability to be satisfied with little is mod- 
eration of nature. The number of forms of knowledge and other 
perfections which the satisfaction of nature demands is the sim- 
plicity of nature. The man in whom the simplicity and the mod- 
eration of nature meet is the man of nature. He who could desire 
more than is naturally necessary is luxurious. 

20. The whole aim of the sciences is either eruditio (memory) 
or speculatio (reason). Both must result in making man more 
sensible (shrewder, wiser) in the position appropriate 

to human nature, and thus more easily contented. 

Taste, which is moral, makes one despise the science which does 

not improve him. 

21. Young people have much feeling, but little taste. 

22. Woman has fine taste in the choice of that which can affect 
man's feelings ; man has a blunt sense of this. Hence he pleases 



230 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

most when he is the least concerned about pleasing. On the other 
hand, woman has sound taste in that which concerns her own feel- 
ings. 

23. Man's honor consists in his own estimation of himself; 
woman's honor in the judgment of others. A man marries ac- 
cording to his own judgment ; a woman does not marry against her 
parents' wishes. Woman meets injustice with tears, man with 
anger. 

24. Novels make noble women fantastic and common women 
silly ; they make noble men fantastic and common men lazy. 

25. Rousseau's book serves to improve upon the ancients. 

26. Because in civilized conditions there are so many unnatural 
desires, there also occasionally arises a motive for virtue ; and be- 
cause there is so much luxury in enjoyment and in knowledge, 
science arises. In the natural state one can be good without virtue 
and reasonable without science. 

27. It is difficult to see whether man would be better off in the 
simple natural state than he is now : (1) because he has lost his 

susceptibility to simple pleasure ; (2) because he 
Ha^^^hiess usually believes that the corruption which he sees in 

the civilized state also exists in the state of simplicity. 
Happiness without taste is based upon simplicity and the modera- 
tion of inclinations ; happiness with taste is based upon the sensi- 
tive soul ; calm. Hence one must be capable of happiness when 
alone, for then one is not annoyed by necessities. Rest after labor 
is more agreeable, and one should not pursue pleasure. 

28. Rousseau proceeds synthetically, and begins with the natu- 
ral man ; I proceed analytically, and begin with the moral man. 

However the heart of man may be constituted, our 
Nature^^^ ^^ ^^^^ question here is, whether the state of nature or 

of the civilized world develops more real sins and 
more facility to sin. The moral evil can be so muffled that only 
lack of greater purity, but never a positive vice, exhibits itself in 



SELECTIONS 231 

actions (he is not necessarily vicious who is not holy) ; on the other 
hand, positive vice can be so developed as to become abhorrent. 
The simple man has little temptation to become vicious ; it is 
luxury alone which is very attractive, and when the taste for 
luxury is already very great, the respect for moral sensibility and 
for the understanding cannot restrain one. 

29. Holy Scripture has more influence upon the improvement of 
the supernatural powers ; good moral education has more influence 
when everything is to follow nature. I grant that by means of the 
latter we can bring about no purifying holiness, but we can pro- 
duce a moral goodness coram foro humano, and the latter is condu- 
cive to the former. 

30. The threat of eternal punishment cannot be the immediate 
reason for morally good actions, but it can indeed be a powerful 
counterbalance for the incitement to evil that the immediate feeling 
of the moral be not outweighed. There is no such thing as an im- 
mediate inclination to morally evil actions, but there is to morally 
good actions. 

31. Shame and modesty are two different things. The former is 
a betrayal of a secret by the natural movement of the blood ; the 
latter is a means of hiding a secret, for vanity's sake, likewise in 
the inclination of sex. 

32. There is a great difference between conquering one's incli- 
nations and rooting them out, — i.e., acting in such a way as to lose 
them. Again, this is different from warding off inclinations, — i.e., 
acting in such a way that one never acquires them. Old people 
need the former, young people the latter. 

33. It requires a good deal of skill to prevent children from 
lying. For, as they have much to accomplish, and are much too 
weak to refuse to do as they are required or to es- .^ 
cape punishment, they have much more incitement 

to lie than old people ever have. This is especially true because, 
unlike old people, they can procure nothing for themselves, but 
everything depends upon the way they present a thing according to 



232 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

the inclination which they observe in others. Thus they can only 
be punished for that which they cannot deny, and they should not 
be granted what they wish merely because of the reasons they ad- 
vance. 

34. When one is trying to develop morality, one should under 
no condition employ inducements which do not make the action 

morally good, — i.e., punishment, reward, etc. Thus 
Training lyii^g should be represented as literally vicious, as it 

indeed is, and it should not be included in any other 
moral category ; for example, that of duty towards others. One 
has no duties towards one's self, but one has absolute duties which 
are such in themselves — to act rightly. It is absurd that in our 
morality we seldom depend upon ourselves. 

35. In medicine we say that the physician is the servant of 
nature ; the same is true in ethics : keep the external evil at a dis- 
tance, and nature will take the right path of her own accord. If 
a physician said that nature is corrupt, how could he improve her? 
Even so the moralist. 

36. Man is not interested in the happiness or unhappiness of 
others until he himself is satisfied ; hence make him satisfied 
with little, and you will make kind men ; otherwise it is in 
vain. Universal brotherly love has something very noble and 
sublime about it, but it is chimerical. As long as one is himself 
so dependent upon things, he cannot sympathize with the happiness 
of others. 

37. The simple man has a sense of right very early, but very 
late, or not at all, a concept of right. This sense must be much 
Sense versus earlier developed than the concept. If he is taught 
Concept first to develop according to rules, he will never feel. 
Training. When the inclinations are once developed, it is diffi- 
cult to imagine good or evil in other circumstances. Because I 
am now devoured by ennui unless I have continual pleasure, I 
imagine the same thing to be true of the Swiss cow-herd on the 
mountain, and he will not think of himself as a man who is satis- 



SELECTIONS 233 

fied and cannot desire anything more. One can hardly conceive 
that this lowliness is not filled with pain. On the other hand, 
even when other people are infected with imaginary evils, some 
cannot imagine how this idea could have been expected in their 
case. The aristocrat imagines that the evils of the disregard of 
vanished magnificence cannot oppress the citizen, and does not 
understand how he can accustom himself to count certain luxuries 
among his necessities. 

38. Can anything be more perverted than to talk about the other 
world to children who have hardly begun life in this ? 

39. As fruit, when it is ripe, drops from the tree and falls to the 
ground in order to let its own seeds take root, so the man who 
comes of age separates himself from his parents, transplants him- 
self, and becomes the root of a new race. Man must be inde- 
pendent that woman may depend entirely upon him. 

40. It must be asked how far inner moral principles can bring 
a man. Perhaps they will bring him to the point where he is good, 
in the state of freedom, without great temptation. But when the 
injustice of others or the force of an illusion does him harm, 
this inner morality is not sufficiently powerful. He must have 
religion and encourage himself with the hope of the reward of 
a future life. Human nature is incapable of an immediate moral 
purity ; but when its purity is worked upon in a supernatural 
manner, future rewards have no longer the character of motives. 

41. The difference between false and true morality is this : that 
the former merely seeks correctives for evils, while the latter is 
concerned with preventing the existence of these evils. 

42. It is unnatural that a man should spend the greatest part of 
his life in teaching a child how it shall live hereafter. Such pri- 
vate tutors as Jean Jacques are hence artificial. A 

child has but few services done for it ordinarily ; as ^^^g^g Schools 
soon as it gains a little strength, it of its own accord 
performs little useful actions of adults, — for example, in the case of 
country people and artisans, — and learns the rest gradually. Still, 



234 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

it is fitting that a man should devote his life to teaching many 
others at the same time to live ; then the sacrifice of his own life 
is not to be counted. Hence schools are necessary, but to make 
them possible, Emile must be educated. It would be well if Rous- 
seau had shown just how schools could arise from this. Country 
pastors can begin it with their own children and those of their 
neighbors. 

43. I must read Rousseau until I am no longer distracted by the 
beauty of his style, and then I can estimate him reasonably. That 
great people shine only in the distance, and that a prince loses 
much in the presence of his valet, is because no man is great. 

44. It is necessary to understand how the art and daintiness of 
the civilized constitution arise, and how in some regions of the 

world they are never met with (for example, where 
State of Nature ^^^^^ ^^^ ^^ domestic animals), in order to learn to 

distinguish that which is strange and accidental to 
nature from that which is essential to her. When one considers 
the happiness of the savages, it is not in order to return to the 
woods, but only in order to see what one has lost, while one has 
gained in other respects ; that one may not stick fast, with unnat- 
ural and unhappy inclinations, in the enjoyment and use of social 
luxury, and may remain a moral man of nature. Such an obser- 
vation serves as a standard, for nature never makes a man a citizen, 
and his inclinations and efforts are all meant merely for the simple 
state of life. The chief object of most of the other creatures seems 
to be that they and their kind live ; when I assume this in the 
case of man, I must not despise the common savage. 

45. I can never convince another except through his own 
thoughts ; hence I must take for granted that he has a good and 

just understanding, otherwise it is vain to hope that 

Interaction ^^ ^^^ ^^ ^'^" °^^^ ^^ ^^ reasons. Likewise, I 

cannot move any one, in a moral sense, in any other 

way than through his own feelings ; hence I must take for granted 

that he has a certain goodness of heart, otherwise my description of 



SELECTIONS 235 

vice will inspire him with no abhorrence, and my praise of virtue 
will never incline him towards it. But because it is possible that 
he have some morally just feelings, or because he can surmise that 
his feelings agree with those of the whole human race, that the 
evil in him is altogether evil, I must acknowledge to him the par- 
tial good which is in it, and represent to him as deceptive in itself 
the slippery resemblance between innocence and guilt. 

46. It is said that the Christian shall not love temporal things. 
By this is understood that care must be taken very early to avoid 
the acquirement of such a love. But it is tempting God to 
nourish these inclinations and then to expect supernatural assist- 
ance in conquering them. 

47. The first inequality is that of a man and a child, that of a 
man and a woman. The man regards it, in a manner, as an 
obligation, since he is strong and they are weak, not to sacrifice 
anything to them. 

48. Every incorrect estimate of that which does not belong to 
nature's purpose destroys nature's beautiful harmony. By con- 
sidering the arts and sciences so very important, one brings into 
contempt those people who do not possess them, and we are led 
into injustice, of which we would not be guilty if we regarded 
them more as our equals. 

49. How many centuries passed before there was any real sci- 
ence, and how many nations there are in the world which will 
never have any ! We must not say that nature calls us to science 
because she has given us ability for it ; for, so far as the desire is 
concerned, it can merely be simulated. 

50. Scholars think that everything is here on their account; 
likewise the nobility. If one has travelled through desolate France, 
one can comfort himself in the Academy of Sciences or in high- 
toned companies ; so, when one has succeeded in freeing himself 
from all forms of begging in the Pontifical State, he can intoxicate 



236 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

himself in Rome with the splendor of the churches and the 
antiquities. 

51. Man may subtihze as much as he likes, he cannot force 
nature to lay down different laws. He must either work himself 
or others must work for him ; and this labor will rob others of 
their happiness in the ratio in which he tries to raise his above 
the average. 

52. The evil effect of science upon men is principally this, that 
by far the greatest number of those who wish to display a knowl- 
edge of it accomplish no improvement at all of the understanding, 
but only a perversity of it, not to mention that it serves most of 
them as a tool of vanity. 

53. Man's greatest concern is to know how he shall properly 
fill his place in the universe and correctly understand what he 
must be in order to be a man. 

54. Youth must be taught to honor reason on moral as well as 
on logical grounds. 

55. I am an investigator by inclination. I feel a great thirst 
for knowledge and an impatient eagerness to advance, also satis- 
faction at each progressive step. There was a time 

Influence when I thought that all this could constitute the 

honor of humanity, and I despised the mob, which 
knows nothing about it. Rousseau set me straight. This dazzling 
excellence vanishes ; I learn to honor men, and would consider 
myself much less useful than common laborers if I did not believe 
that this consideration could give all the others a value, to establish 
the rights of humanity. 

56. The life of one who merely enjoys, without contemplation 
and without morals, seems to have no value. 



SELECTIONS 237 

57. In the civilized state man grows wise only very late, and one 
might well say, with Theophrastus, that it is a pity that he ceases 
to live just as he sees life opening. 

58. In the metaphysical elements of aesthetics the various non- 
moral feelings are to be made use of ; in the elements of moral 
metaphysics the various moral feelings of men, according to the 
differences in sex, age, education, and government, of races and 
climates, are to be employed. 

59. One has reason not to refine his feelings too much, first, in 
order not to expose them to too much pain ; second, in order to 
care for truer and more useful things. Moderation and simplicity 
require coarser feelings, and make one happy. 

60. In the natural state no concept of God can arise, and the 
false one which one makes for himself is harmful. Hence the 
theory of natural religion can be true only where there is no 
science ; therefore it cannot bind all men together. 

61. It is best for us to be guided by the model of the ancients in 
all those things which appertain to fine or elevated feeling : in 
sculpture, architecture, poetry and eloquence, old 

customs and old constitutions. The ancients were 
closer to nature ; between us and nature there is much that is 
frivolous, voluptuous, or slavishly corrupt. Ours is a century of 
beautiful trifles, of bagatelles, of noble chimeras. 

62. Man has his own inclinations and a natural will which, in 
his actions, by means of his free choice, he follows and directs. 
There can be nothing more dreadful than that the 

actions of one man should be subject to the will of 

another ; hence no abhorrence can be more natural than that 

which a man has for slavery. And it is for this reason that a 

child cries and becomes embittered when he must do what others 

wish, when no one has taken the trouble to make it agreeable to 

him. He wants to be a man soon, so that he can do as he himself 

likes. 



II 

HUMAN PERFECTION AND PROGRESS 

That Kant came to regard education as properly falling within 

the bounds of ethics rather than within the realm of physical or 

natural science, and hence within theoretical philoso- 
Pedagogy a ' ^ 

Branch of pliy, may be gathered from the following selections 

Ethics. fj,Qj^ ii^Q Introduction to The Metaphi/sical Elements 

of Ethics, Pt. II., Sections, 5, 8 (1797). In discussing those 
ends which are also duties, he remarks about "Our Own Perfec- 
tion," which is one of them : 

The word Perfection is subject to many misconceptions. . . . 

When it is said of the perfection belonging to man in general 
(really to humanity) that it is in itself a duty to make this our 
purpose, it must be understood as meaning that 
which can be the effect of one's action, not that 
which is a mere gift for which we must thank nature ; for other- 
wise it would not be a duty. It can therefore be nothing else than 
culture of one's faculty (or natural capacity), in which the under- 
standing, as the faculty of concepts, is consequently the highest of 
those which refer to duties, but also at the same time of his ivill 
(moral mode of thinking), to satisfy every duty in general. First, 
it is his duty to elevate himself gradually out of the rawness of his 
nature, out of animality more and more into humanity, through 
which alone he is capable of setting purposes before himself; to 
supply his ignorance through instruction and to correct his errors, 
and the technical-practical reason not only recommends this to him 
as his ultimate purpose (of art), but the moral-practical reason 
238 



SELECTIONS 239 

commands him absolutely to make this purpose his duty, in order to 
become worthy of the humanity which resides in him. Secondly, 
it is his duty to elevate the culture of his will up to the purest in- 
tention of virtue, where, namely, the law at once becomes the 
motive of his actions conformable to duty, and to obey it from 
a sense of duty which is inner moral-practical perfection. — Har- 
tenstein, vii. p. 190. 



Physical perfection, — that is, cultivation of all faculties in general, 
for the promotion of those purposes presented through the reason. 
That this is a duty, consequently an end in itself, gglf. 

and that its elaboration, without reference to the development 
advantage which it yields us, does not rest upon a * ^^^' 

conditional (pragmatic), but an unconditional (moral) imperative, 
is shown by the following consideration. The power to set up 
before itself any end is the characteristic of humanity (distin- 
guishing it from animality). With the end of humanity in our 
own person, there is therefore united the rational will, conse- 
quently the duty, to make ourselves through culture in general 
deserving of humanity, to provide the power for a realization of all 
possible ends, in so far as this power is to be found in man him- 
self, or to further it, — that is, a duty to cultivate the raw capacities 
of his nature, as the means by which the animal first of all is ele- 
vated to man : consequently a duty in itself. 

However, this duty is merely ethical, — that is, of wide obligation. 
How far one should go in cultivation (extension, or correction, of 
his faculty of understanding, — that is, in knowledge, or artistic 
ability) is prescribed by no rational principles ; the variety of 
circumstances, also, in which man can be placed renders very 
arbitrary the choice of the kind of employment for which he should 
cultivate his talent. Here, therefore, there is no law of reason for 
the actions, but only for the maxim thereof, which runs thus : 
"Cultivate the powers of thy mind and body into fitness for all 
purposes which can possibly come in thy way, uncertain as to 
which of them may some time be thine." — Hartenstein, vii. p. 
195. 



240 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

As late as 1798, towards the close of the "practical" or ethical 
period of his life, as some biographers characterize it, in discussing 
the conditions of human progress, Kant expressed the following 
view in The Strife of the Faculties, Section 10, Hartenstein, vii. 
pp. 406, 407. 



In what order can progress towards the better be alone expected f 
The answer is, Not from the progress of things from below up- 
ward but from above downward. — To expect that one can succeed 

in educating not only good citizens, but also for the 
Conditions of , ^ ^ d • i ■• •■ i^ 

Progress good capable oi progressing and supporting itself, 

through the education of youth in domestic in- 
struction and later in schools from the lowest to the highest in 
spiritual and moral culture, strengthened by the teachings of re- 
ligion, is a plan which hardly promises the desired result. For, 
not only does the public insist that the expenses of the education 
of its youth should not fall upon it, but rather upon the state, 
while the state, on the other hand, has no money to pay salaries 
to thorough and enthusiastic teachers (as Biisching complains) 
because it needs all its funds for war ; but the whole machinery 
of this education has no continuity, if it is not projected according 
to a well-considered plan of the highest authority of the state, and 
according to its intentions, put into operation and uniformly main- 
tained ; for this, indeed, it might be necessary that the state reform 
itself from time to time, and, trying evolution instead of revolution, 
continually advance towards the better. But since it is men who 
are to bring about this education, consequently such as have had 
to be educated for it themselves, in view of this weakness of 
human nature, under the uncertainty of the conditions which favor 
such an effect, the hope of its progress is only in a wisdom from 
above (which, when it is invisible to us, is called Providence), as a 
positive condition, but for that which can herein be expected and 
demanded of men, only negative wisdom is to be expected for the 
furtherance of this object : namely, that they see themselves obliged 
to let the greatest hindrance of the moral, — namely, war, — which 
always causes the moral to retrograde, . . . disappear in order to 



SELECTIONS 241 

adopt a constitution which, by its very nature, without weakening 
itself, founded upon real principles of right, can advance uninter- 
ruptedly towards the better. 



In the Anthropology, etc. (1798), Hartenstein, vii. p. 653, in 
treating of **The Character of the Race," Kant presents this form 
of educational force in its natural, non-political aspect as follows : 

The education of the human race in the totality of its species, — 
i.e., taken collectively {universorum), not individually {singulorum), 
— where the multitude yields, not a system, but only 
a collected aggregate, with the struggle towards a pedagogy, 

civil constitution to be founded upon the principle 
of freedom, but at the same time upon the principle of lawful re- 
straint in mind, man expects only from Providence, — i.e., from a 
wisdom which is not his, but yet which is (through his own fault) 
the impotent idea of his own reason, — this education from above 
downward, I say, is wholesome, but harsh and severe, and is a 
very uncomfortable manipulation of nature which goes nearly to 
the length of destroying the whole race, — namely, the production 
of the good not intended by man, but a good which, once here, 
maintains itself, from the evil which is continually in internal dis- 
agreement with itself. Providence means that very wisdom which 
we notice with admiration in the preservation of the species of 
organized natural creatures which are continually laboring at the 
destruction of their own species and yet always protecting it, with- 
out, for that reason, assuming a higher principle in the provision 
for them than we do for the preservation of plants and animals. 



16 



Ill 



LETTERS ON THE PHILANTHROPINUM 
AT DESSAU 

TO THE GENERAL PUBLIC ^ 

There is no lack, in the civilized countries of Europe, of educa- 
tional institutions, and of well-meant intentions on the part of 

teachers to be useful in this matter ; and yet it has 
tion Bad ^^^^ clearly proven that they were all spoiled at the 

outset ; that, because everything in them is working 
in opposition to nature, the good to which nature has given the 
disposition is far from being drawn out of man, and that because 
we animal creatures are converted into men only by development, 
we would, in a short time, see entirely different men around us, if 
once that educational method were in full swing which is derived 
wisely from nature itself, and not slavishly copied after the old 
custom of rude and inexperienced ages. 

But it is useless to expect this salvation of the human race to 
come from a gradual improvement of the schools. They must be 
A Revolution ^n^de over if anything good is to come from them, 
in Schools for they are defective in their original organization. 

Necessary. ^j^^ even the teachers must acquire a new cultiva- 

tion. This can be brought about, not by a slow reform, but by a 
quick revolution. And for this nothing more is necessary than a 

1 This communication to the public in behalf of The Philanthro- 
pinum, dated March 27, 1777, appeared originally in the Konigs- 
berg newspaper, over Kant's initial. K. von Raumer, in 1843, in 
his Geschichte der Pddagogik, was the first historian of education 
to call attention to it by reprinting it in full. 
242 



SELECTIONS 243 

school, radically rearranged according to the true method, directed 
by enhghtened men, prompted not by selfish, but by noble zeal, 
and judged during its progress towards perfection by the attentive 
eyes of the connoisseurs of all countries, and also supported and fur- 
thered by the united contributions of all philanthropists until it 
attains completion. 

Such a school is not only for those whom it educates, but also, 
which is infinitely more important, for those to whom it gives an 

opportunity to train themselves in gradually in- _ _ 

^^ T . 11 Training 

creasing numbers to be teachers, according to the Teachers. 

true educational method, — a seed which, if tended 

carefully, will produce in a short time a number of well-instructed 

teachers who will cover the whole country with good schools only. 

The efforts of the general public of all countries should be first 

directed towards assisting such a model school, helping it in 

every way to reach that perfection whose sources it 

, X • T^ 1 u • u • -i Importance of 

already contains. For to begin by copying its or- a Model School. 

ganization and plan in other countries, and retarding 
it itself, which is to become the first complete example and nursery 
of good education, in its progress by lack of funds and other hin- 
drances, is to sow seed before it is mature, and to reap weeds. 

Now, such an educational institution is not merely a beautiful 
idea, but proves actively and visibly the feasibility of something 
which has long been desired. Surely it is a fact of our own age 
which, although overlooked by ordinary eyes, must be much more 
important, in the opinion of every enlightened observer who is in- 
terested in human welfare, than the brilliant nothingness on the 
ever-changing stage of the world at large, which does not advance 
the human race a hair's-breadth, even if it does not retard it. 

Reputation, and especially the united voices of conscientious 

and astute connoisseurs in various countries, will already have 

made known to the readers of this paper the edu- 

^ ,_,„,,,,, . . The Institute 

cational institute at Dessau {The Philanthropinum) at Dessau. 

as the only one which is characterized by these 

marks of excellence, not the least important of which is, that the 

very nature of its organization causes all the defects which may 



244 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

have attached to it at first to fall away naturally. The attacks 
against it which crop up here and there, and the occasional libels 
. . . about it are such ordinary tricks of fault-finding and of an- 
cient usage defending itself on its dunghill that calm indifference 
on the part of this sort of people, who always look with malicious 
eyes upon everything which claims to be good and noble, would 
rather give rise to some suspicion of mediocrity in the good thing 
which is advancing. 

An opportunity is now offered to render aid (which individually 
can be only small, but become powerful through numbers) to this 

institute which is devoted to humanity, and hence 
Aid solicited. , ,, n i? -i- tit i 

to the sympathy of every citizen. Were one to ex- 
ert his inventive powers in order to think up some way in which 
a small contribution would help forward the greatest possible, 
most lasting, and most general good, he would settle on this 
one, since the seed of the good itself can be tended and cultivated 
in order that in time it may increase and perpetuate itself. 

In accordance with these ideas and with the good opinion 
which we have of the number of right-thinking persons of our 
general public, we refer to the twenty-first issue of this news- 
paper, together with its supplement, and lock forward to a large 
subscription from all gentlemen of the clerical and teaching 
classes, especially from parents, to whom nothing which will 
serve to improve their children's education can be indifferent; 
yes, even from those who, although they have no children of 
their own, yet as children had the advantage of an education, and 
for that reason will recognize their obligation to contribute their 
share, if not to the increase, yet at least to the education, of men. 

Subscriptions to the monthly publication of the Institute of 
Dessau, entitled Pedagogical Conversations, are now being re- 
ceived at the rate of 2 Reichsthaler 10 Groschen in our money. 
But, since some increase may be demanded at the end of the year 
because of the as yet uncertain number of pages, it would per- 
haps be best (but this is left to individual discretion) to devote a 
ducat, in the way of subscription, to the furtherance of this work, 
whereupon the surplus would be refunded to every one who would 



SELECTIONS 245 

demand it. For the institute in question flatters itself that there 
are many noble-minded people in all countries who would be glad 
of such an opportunity to add, at this suggestion, a small voluntary 
present to the amount of their subscription, as a contribution to 
the support of the institute which is nearly perfect, but which 
is not being helped as much as had been expected. For since, 
as Herr 0. C. R. Biisching says {Wochentl. Nachrichten, J. 1776, 
Nr. 16), the governments seem to have no money nowadays for 
improvements in the schools, it will rest at last, if they are to be 
made, with private persons of means, to promote by generous con- 
tribution such an important, common concern. 

(Local subscriptions, for which receipts will be given, may be 
handed to Prof. Kant from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., or left at any time at 
Ranter's bookstore.) K. 



KANT'S LETTER TO THE COURT CHAPLAIN, WILHELM 
CRICHTON, IN KONIGSBERG 

I venture unhesitatingly to promise myself the greatest and most 
helpful interest, on the part of your Honor, for the support and 
furtherance of an institution founded for the good of the world, as 
soon as you are convinced of its usefulness. The Institute begun 
by Basedow, and now under the entire direction of Herr Wolke, 
has, in the hands of this tireless man, who was made for the 
reform of the educational system, taken on a new form, as is 
plainly to be seen from the recent reports of the Philanthropin, 
which I have the honor to send you. Since the departure of sev- 
eral otherwise well-intentioned, but rather unpractical men, the 
places are all filled with first-rate school-men who have combined 
new and refined ideas with that which was useful in the old method 
of teaching. The world feels keenly the necessity of improved 
education nowadays, but the various attempts to improve it have 
not succeeded. Those of F. von Salis and Bahrdt have been given 
up. The Dessau Institute alone remains ; certainly simply because 
it has Wolke at the head of it, Wolke, who is not to be deterred 
by any obstacles, who is modest and indescribably energetic, who, 



246 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

moreover, has the unusual disposition to be faithful without ob- 
stinacy to his plans, and under whose oversight the institution is 
bound to become, in time, the ancestress of all the good schools in 
the world, if only outside aid and encouragement are given it in 
the beginning. 

From the enclosure your Honor will see that since the latest 
reports of the pedagogical undertaking have been sent to me for 
distribution, I am expected to encourage the public anew not only 
to continue its subscriptions, but to be favorable and benevolent in 
general to the Institute. I am heartily ready and willing to do it ; 
but it seems to me that much more influence would be exerted if 
your Honor would be willing to espouse this cause and lend your 
hand and your pen to its furtherance. If you will allow me to 
give the Institute this hope, the result will be the greatest thanks 
and joyful acceptance of an offer so advantageous. I would then 
have the honor to wait upon you at any time convenient to your- 
self, and to give you the list of subscribers up to date, also, if there 
should be any other business necessary (which is not probable in 
this matter) which other more important matters would hinder your 
Honor from attending to, I would gladly undertake it. 

Since I do not doubt that your Honor will be satisfied by the new 
and well-established arrangement of all that formerly failed to gain 
your full approval in the Institute, and since, under such condi- 
tions, I am sure of your sympathetic zeal for such an extensively 
useful institution, I am not afraid that my confidence will be taken 
in a wrong spirit. 

I am, with the greatest respect, 

Your Honor's most obedient Servant, 

I. Kant. 

[No date.] 



IV 

SELECTIONS ILLUSTRATING SOME 

TECHNICAL TERMS EMPLOYED 

IN THE LECTURE-NOTES 

On the separation of Discipline from Culture, in the broader 
sense of the term, Kant laid considerable stress, and found great 
value in it even for theoretical philosophy, as may be seen in the 
following passage from the Critique of Pure Reason (1781), Har- 
tenstein, iii. p. 475 : 

The negative element of the instruction which merely serves to 
protect us from errors is more important than much positive teach- 
ing by which our knowledge could be increased. 

The restraint by which the continual inclination to „^„„„ !?.?iLl^^ 
•' versus Culture. 

depart from certain rules is limited and finally de- 
stroyed is called discipline. It is different from culture, which is 
supposed merely to furnish one form of dexterity without removing 
another already present. Hence to the cultivation of a talent which 
has already displayed an impulse to make itself apparent, discipline 
offers a negative,^ culture and doctrine a positive contribution. 

^ I am well aware that people are accustomed, in the language 
of the schools, to employ discipline and instruction as synonymous 
terms. But there are so many instances in which the first expres- 
sion, as training, is carefully distinguished from the second, as 
teaching, and the nature of things itself demands that we preserve 
the appropriate expressions for this difference, that I wish it might 
never be permissible to use that word in any other than a negative 
sense. [A note by Kant.] 

247 



248 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

To illustrate Kant's further use of the trinity of positive factors 
in educational activity, as these are picked out and named in 
Section 18, b, c, and d, and which served him repeatedly and in 
different connections as descriptive of human development as he 
regarded it, the following selections may be taken as typical : 

We are cultivated highly by art and science. We are civilized to 
the point of being tiresome in all kinds of social politeness and 
propriety. But we are very far from being able to consider our- 
selves moralized. For the idea of morality belongs to culture ; but 
the use of this idea, which leads only to the imitation of custom in 
the love of honor and external respectability, constitutes mere 
civilizing. — Idea of a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point 
of View (1784), Hartenstein, iv. p. 152. 

In the Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785), 
when treating of the scope of "imperatives" and of the various 
relations between "volition" and "obligation," Kant remarks, — 

• • • Now, in order to make these appreciable, I believe that one 
would name them most suitably in their order, if one said they 
are either rules of skill, or counsels of prudence, or 
imDeratives commands (laws) of morality. ... One might call 
the first imperatives technical (belonging to art), the 
second pragmatic'^ (to welfare), the third moral (belonging to free 
behavior in general, — i.e., to morals). — Hartenstein, iv. pp. 264, 
265. 

. . . Thus morality, and humanity, in so far as it is capable of 
morality, is that which alone has dignity. Skill and industry in 
labor have a market value ; wit, lively imagination, and moods 

^ It seems to me that this is the most exact meaning of the word 
pragmatic. For those sanctions are called pragmatic which are 
derived essentially, not from the rights of the states as necessary 
laws, but from foresight for the general welfare. A history is prag- 
matically compiled when it makes wise, — i.e., teaches the world 
how it can look out for its interests better, or at least as well as 
antiquity did. [A note by Kant.] 



SELECTIONS 249 

fancy value ; truth in keeping promises, on the other hand, good- 
will founded on principles (not from instinct) have an intrinsic 
value. — Hartenstein, iv. p. 283. 

Among the inhabitants of the earth, man is distinctly different 
from all other creatures on account of his possession of the three 
following capacities : technical (conscious, mechanical, for the 
handling of things) ; pragmatic (to use other men cleverly for his 
purposes) ; and moral (to act towards himself and others under laws 
according to the principle of freedom). — Anthropology, etc., Har- 
tenstein, vii. p. 647. 

The sum of Pragmatic Anthropology with reference to the des- 
tiny of man and the characteristics of his education is as follows : 
Man is destined by his reason to be in society with cultivation, 
men and to cultivate, to civilize, and to moralize him- civilization, 
self in it through art and sciences ; however great Moralization. 
his animal propensity may be to yield passively to the attractions 
of indolent ease and of the well-being which he calls happiness, 
he must be active, in the conflict with the hindrances which beset 
him owing to the rawness of his nature, in making himself worthy 
of humanity. 

Hence man must be educated for the good ; but he who is to 
educate him is again a man who is himself still raw and yet is to 
effect the very thing which he himself needs. Hence the continual 
deviation (of man) from his destiny with repeated returns to it. — 
Ibid., p. 649. 



V 

MUSIC 

SECTION 53. COMPARISON OF THE J:STHETIC VALUES 
OF THE FINE ARTS 

Next to poetry, when ive have to do with charm and emotion of the 

mind, I would place that art which approaches it most nearly and 

is most naturally connected with it, — namely, music. 

Music and p although it does indeed speak through pure sen- 

Emotion. * f ^ f 

sations without concepts, and consequently does not, 

like poetry, leave something for later reflection, yet it moves the 
mind in more ways and more intimately, although only tempo- 
rarily ; but it is rather enjoyment than culture (the thought-play 
which is excited at the same time is only the effect of a mechanical 
association, as it were) ; and, judged by the reason, it has less 
value than any of the other fine arts. Hence, like every pleasure, 
it requires frequent variation, and cannot endure much repetition 
without engendering satiety. Its charm, which can be so gen- 
erally communicated, seems to arise from the fact that every ex- 
pression in the language has a tone appropriate to its meaning ; 
that this tone is more or less indicative of an emotion of the 
speaker, and also brings this forth in the hearer, who then in his 
turn excites the idea which is expressed in the language with such 
and such a tone ; and that, as modulation is, as it were, a universal 
language of the sensations, intelligible to every one, music uses it 
for itself alone in all its emphasis, — i.e., as the language of the 
emotions, — and thus, according to the laws of association, commu- 
nicates the aesthetical ideas which are naturally connected with it ; 
but that, because those aesthetic ideas are no concepts and definite 
thoughts, only the form of the combination of these sensations 
(harmony and melody) instead of the form of a language, serves by 
250 



SELECTIONS 251 

means of their proportional pitch (which, since with tones it rests 
upon the relation of the number of vibrations of the air in the 
same time, so far as the tones are joined together simultaneously 
or consecutively, can be brought mathematically under certain 
rules) to express the gesthetic idea of a connected totahty of an 
unnamable wealth of thought, according to a certain theme which 
produces the predominating emotion in the piece. Upon this 
mathematical form, although not represented by definite concepts, 
depends entirely the pleasure which unites the mere reflection 
upon such a number of simultaneous or consecutive sensations 
with this their play as a valid condition for every one of its beauty ; 
and it is the only thing according to which taste may appropriate 
a right to express in advance the judgment of all. 

But mathematics has certainly not the least possible share in the 
charm and emotion which music produces ; it is merely the un- 
avoidable condition {conditio sine qua nan) of that proportion of the 
impressions, in their combination as well as in their change, 
whereby it is possible to combine them, and to prevent their 
destroying each other, making them to accord in a continuous 
moving and enlivening of the mind through the consonant emo- 
tions and thus to contribute to an agreeable self-enjoyment. 

When, on the other hand, the value of the fine arts is estimated 

according to the culture which they procure for the mind, and 

when the increase of the faculties, which must come 

, „ , , , • . 1 Music the 

together in the judgment for knowledge, is taken as Lowest Art. 

a standard, music takes the lowest place among the 

fine arts (as it takes, perhaps, the highest place among those prized 

for the pleasure they give), because it plays merely with sensations. 

In this regard the plastic arts far outstrip it ; for while they set the 

imagination into a free play, and which is one also adapted to the 

understanding, they at the same time incite an activity by producing 

something which serves the concepts of the understanding as a 

lasting and self-recommending means of combining themselves 

with sensibility, and thus, as it were, promote the urbanity of the 

higher powers of knowledge. — Critique of Judgment (1790), Har- 

tenstein, v. pp. 338-340. 



VI 
MEMORY 

Memory is distinguished from merely reproductive imagination 

in that it is capable of voluntarily reproducing the former idea ; 

hence the mind is not a mere play of the imagina- 

UemoYY versus ^^-^^ Fantasy — ^.e., creative imagination — must not 
Imagination. ^ j » o 

intrude here, for the memory would thereby become 

untrue. The formal perfections of memory are : to fix something 
quickly in the memory, to recall it easily, and to retain it a long 
time. But these characteristics are seldom found together. When 
one believes he has something in his memory, but cannot bring it 
to consciousness, he says that he cannot remember it (not remem- 
ber himself ; for that would be the same as making himself sense- 
less). This endeavor, when continued, is very tiring for the head, 
and it is best to turn the attention for a while to other thoughts ; 
then the mind usually catches one of the associated ideas, which 
recalls the one sought. 

To fix something in the memory methodically {memoriae mandare) 

is called memorizing (not studying, as the ordinary man says of the 

preacher who merely learns by heart the sermon he 

,,® ^ .*.° expects to deliver later). This memorizing can be 

Memorizing. r- / o 

mechanical, or ingenious, or also Judicious. The first 
of these is based upon mere frequent, literal repetition ; as, for 
example, in the learning of the multiplication table, where the 
learner must go through the whole series of words following one 
upon the other in the usual order, in order to reach what he is 
seeking ; for example, if the pupil is asked. How much is 3X7? 
he, beginning with 3X3, will probably arrive at 21 ; but if he is 
asked. How much is 7 X 3? he will not be able to remember so 
252 



SELECTIONS 253 

soon, but will have to invert the numbers in order to place them 
in their accustomed order. When that which is learned is a 
solemn formula, in which no expression can be changed, but 
which, as we say, must be recited, people of the best memory- 
fear to trust to it entirely (as though this very fear could confuse 
them), and hence consider it necessary to read it off ; the most 
expert preachers do this, because the slightest change of the words 
would be ridiculous. 

Ingenious memorizing is a method of stamping upon the memory 
certain ideas by association with allied ideas which in themselves 
(for the understanding) have no relation whatsoever to one another ; 
for example, the sounds of a language with entirely dissimilar pic- 
tures which are supposed to correspond to them : where one, in 
order to fix something in memory, burdens the latter with still 
more associations ; hence inconsistent as regular procedure of the 
imagination in the pairing off of that which cannot belong under 
one and the same concept, and at the same time contradiction be- 
tween means and intention, since one is trying to lighten the labor 
of memory, but, as a matter of fact, one makes it more difficult 
still by the association, unnecessarily piled upon it, of very dis- 
similar ideas. That punsters seldom have a true memory (in- 
geniosis non admodum fida est memoria) is an observation which 
illustrates this phenomenon. 

Judicious memorizing is no other than that of a table of the 
division of a system (for example, of Linne) into thoughts ; where, 
if one should have forgotten something, one can remember it by 
counting the members retained ; or of the divisions of a visualized 
whole (for example, of the provinces of a country on a map, which 
lie towards the north, west, etc.), because this demands under- 
standing, and understanding, in its turn, comes to the help of 
imagination. The topic is a framework for general concepts, called 
commonplaces, which by division into classes, as when in a library 
one divides the books into cases with different labels, relieves the 
memory the most. 

There is no art of memory (ars mnemonica) as a universal theory. 
Among the contrivances which particularly belong to it are mottoes 



254 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

in verses (versus memoriales) ; because rhythm contains a regular 
accent, which is greatly to the advantage of the mechanism 

of memory. We must not speak contemptuously 

of the wonderful men of memory, of Picus of 
Mirandola, Scaliger, Angelus Politian, Magliabecchi, etc., the 
polyhistors, who carried around in their heads as material for the 
sciences sufficient books to load one hundred camels, because they 
perhaps did not possess the necessary judgment to be able to select 
from all this knowledge that which could be most suitably em- 
ployed ; for it is in itself merit enough to have gathered together 
in abundance the raw material, although other heads must come 
later to handle it with judgment {tantum scimus, quantum memoria 
tenemus). One of the ancients said, "The art of writing has 
destroyed memory (made it partly dispensable)." There is some 
truth in this ; for the ordinary man has the manifold things which 
are brought to him usually better arranged, to perform them in 
their order, and to recollect them ; just because memory is here 
mechanical, and no reasoning is added to it ; while, on the other 
hand, the learned man, through whose head many strange allied 
ideas go, forgets many of his errands or of his domestic affairs by 
distraction, because he has not grasped them with sufficient atten- 
tion. But it is a great convenience, with a writing tablet in one's 
pocket, to be sure of finding, exactly, and with no trouble, what- 
ever one has stowed away in the head, and the art of writing 
remains a glorious art, because, even though it were not employed 
in the communication to another of one's knowledge, it would still 
take the place of the broadest and truest memory, whose lack it 
can make good. 

Forgetfulness (obliviositas), on the other hand, where the head, 
no matter how often it may be filled, is always empty, like a cask 

with holes bored in it, is a still greater evil. Some- 
The Evil of times this is undeserved, as in the case of old people, 

who can, it is true, remember the events of their 
younger years, but who always forget that which has just taken 
place. But still it is sometimes the result of habitual distraction, 
which principally attacks novel-readers. For, since in this kind of 



SELECTIONS 255 

reading the intention is only to amuse one's self for the moment, 
knowing it is mere fiction, the reader is entirely free to compose 
according to her [!] own imagination, which naturally distracts, 
and makes absent-mindedness (lack of attention to the present) 
habitual ; thus the memory is unavoidably weakened. This exer- 
cise in the art of killing time, and making one's self useless for 
the world, and then mourning over the shortness of life, is, aside 
from the fantastic frame of mind which it causes, one of the most 
hostile kinds of attack upon memory, — Anthropology, etc., Harten- 
stein, vii. pp. 497-501. 



VII 
PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY 

As, at the beginning of my academic instruction, I recognized the 
fact that a great carelessness on the part of the student body con- 
Educational ^^^^^ principally in their learning early to reason spe- 
Vaiue of ciously, without possessing sufficient historical knowl- 

Geography, g^jgg which could take the place of experience, I decided 
to reduce the history of the present condition of the earth, or geogra- 
phy in its broadest meaning, to an agreeable and easy summary of 
that which could prepare them for practical reasoning, and serve to 
arouse a desire to extend the knowledge thus begun. I called a 
discipline of this sort, from that part of it to which my attention 
was particularly directed, physical geography. Since then I have 
gradually enlarged this outline, and now I think to gain time by cur- 
tailing that division which has to do with the physical curiosities 
of the earth, in order to elaborate my exposition of its other parts, 
which are of more general utility. So this discipline will be a 
physical-moral Siud political geography, wherein /rsi the curiosities 
of nature throughout her three kingdoms will be indicated, but 
with a selection of those, among innumerable others, which appeal 
particularly to the universal desire for knowledge, by reason of the 
charm of their rarity, or of the influence which they have upon the 
states through commerce and trade. This part, which also con- 
tains the natural relation of all countries and seas, and the reason 
of their connection, is the real foundation of all history, without 
which it would hardly be different from fairy-stories. The second 
division regards man according to the multiplicity of his natural 
characteristics and according to the difference in that which he con- 
siders moral, throughout the whole earth ; a very important and 
equally attractive study, without which it is difficult to form gen- 
256 



SELECTIONS 257 

eral judgments of man, and in which the comparison between 
themselves and with the moral condition of former times lays a 
huge map of the human race before our eyes. Finally, that which 
can be considered as a result of the interaction of both the above- 
mentioned forces — namely, the condition of the states and nations 
on the earth — will be considered, not so much as it rests upon the 
chance causes of the undertaking and the fate of individual men, 
as, for example, the succession of kings, conquests, or state in- 
trigues, but rather in its relation to that which is more permanent, 
and which includes the distant foundations of all these, — namely, 
the situation of their countries, their products, customs, indus- 
tries, commerce, and population. Even the rejuvenation, if I may 
call it such, of a science of such extensive views, on a smaller scale, 
is of gfeat value, for in that way alone is unity of knowledge, 
without which all learning is fragmentary, acquired. And in a 
social century like the present one, may I not reckon the supply 
which a great diversity of agreeable and instructive knowledge of 
easy comprehensibility offers for the support of social intercourse 
among the advantages which it is no degradation for science to 
have in mind ? At least it cannot be pleasant for a learned man to 
be often in the embarrassing position in which the orator Isocrates 
found himself, who, when once he was urged to say something at 
a social gathering, was obliged to answer, ' ' What I know is not 
suitable, and what is suitable I do not know." — Announcement of 
the Arrangement of his Lectures for the Winter Semester, 1765-1766, 
Hartenstein, ii. pp. 320, 321. 



17 



VIII 
KNOWLEDGE AND LOGICAL METHODS 

Kant's psychological conception of knowledge, in so far as it can 
be a matter of concern for pedagogy, is derivable, not so readily 
from his systematic treatises comprising the Critical Philosophy, as 
from some of his minor writings, of which the following selection, 
being the closing paragraph of Section 8 of the Introduction to 
his Logic, which treats of "The Logical Perfection of Knowledge 
according to Quality," is a fairly clear specimen. — Hartenstein, viii. 
p. 65. 

As regards the objective content of our knowledge in general, we 

may think of it in terms of the following gradations : 

The first degree of knowledge is : merely to have 
Degrees of . , 

Knowledge. ^^ '^^^- 

The second: to have an idea consciously, or to 

perceive (percipere). 

The third : to know (noscere) something, or to have an idea of 
something in comparison with other things, according to identity as 
well as to difference. 

The fourth : to know something consciously, — i.e., apprehend (cog- 
noscere). Animals know objects, but they do not apprehend them. 

The fifth: to understand {intelligere) something, — i.e., to appre- 
hend or conceive through the understanding by means of concepts. 
This is very different from comprehending. One can conceive a 
great deal, although one cannot comprehend it ; for example, ajoer- 
petuum mobile, whose impossibility is shown in mechanics. 

The sixth : to apprehend something through the reason, or 
understand {perspicere). We accomplish this in few things, and 
258 



SELECTIONS 259 

our cognitions decrease in number the more we wish to complete 
their content. 

Finally, the seventh: to comprehend {comprehendere) sov[iQi]im^, — 
i.e., apprehend it through the reason or a priori in that degree 
which is sufficient for our purpose. For all our comprehending is 
only relative, — i.e., sufficient for a certain purpose; absolutely vfe 
comprehend nothing at all. Nothing more can be comprehended 
than what the mathematician demonstrates ; for example, that 
all the lines in a circle are proportional. And yet he does not 
comprehend how it happens that such a simple figure has these 
characteristics. The field of understanding, or [its faculty] the 
understanding, is hence in general much greater than the field of 
comprehending, or [its faculty] the reason. 



LOGICAL METHODS 

How heavily Kant's general treatment of the pedagogy of in- 
struction was indebted to his borrowings from logic may readily be 
seen in the following portions from his Logic (Hartenstein, viii. 
pp. 133, 141-143), being the 

General Methodology of Logic 
Section 94 

Manner and Method 
All knowledge and its totality must conform to a rule. (Irregu- 
larity is irrationality.) But this rule is either that of nianner (free) 
or that of method (constrained). 

Section 95 
Form of Science. Method 

Knowledge, as science, must be arranged after a method. For 
science is a totality of knowledge as system and not merely as 
aggregate. It demands, therefore, a knowledge which is systematic, 
consequently arranged according to well-considered rules. 



260 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

Section 96 

Methodology. Its Object and Purpose 

As the elements of logic contain the elements and conditions of 
the completeness of knowledge, so, on the contrary, the general 
methodology, as the other part of logic, has to treat of the form of 
a science in general, or of the manner of bringing together the 
manifold of knowledge to make a science. 

Section 114 

Different Divisions of Method 

As to that which particularly concerns method in the elaboration 
and treatment of scientific knowledge, there are various chief sorts, 
which we can indicate here according to the following division. 

Section 115 
1. Scientific or Popular Method 

The scientific or scholastic method differs from the popular in 
that the former originates in fundamental or elementary proposi- 
tions, while the latter is derived from the usual and the interesting. 
The scientific method aims at thoroughness, and hence puts aside 
all that is heterogeneous ; the popular method has entertainment in 
view. 

Note. — These two methods thus differ in kind, and not in mere 
exposition ; popularity in method is consequently something dif- 
ferent from popularity in exposition. 

Section 116 

2. Systematic or Fragmentary Method 

The systematic method is opposed to the fragmentary or rhap- 
sodical. When one has thought according to a method, and has 
then expressed this method in his exposition, and the transition 
from one proposition to another is plainly indicated, he has handled 
knowledge systematically. On the other hand, if one has indeed 



SELECTIONS 261 

thought according to a method, but has not arranged his expo- 
sition methodically, such a method must be called rhapsodical. 

Note. — The systematic exposition is opposed to the fragmentary, 
as the methodical is to the tumultuous. The methodical thinks, — 
that is to say, can give a systematic, or a fragmentary exposition. 
The externally fragmentary exposition, which is in itself method- 
ical, is aphoristic. 

Section 117 

3. Analytic or Synthetic Method 

The analytic method is opposed to the synthetic. The former 
begins with the conditioned and the established, and proceeds to 
the principles {a principiatis ad principia), while the latter pro- 
ceeds from the principles to their consequences, or from the simple 
to the complex. The former might be called regressive, the latter 
progressive. 

Note. — The analytic method is also called the method of dis- 
covery. For the purpose of popularity the analytic method is the 
better adapted, while the synthetic method is better suited for the 
purpose of the scientific and systematic treatment of knowledge. 

Section 118 
4' Syllogistic. — Tabular Method 

The syllogistic method is that one, according to which a science 
is expounded in a chain of syllogisms. 

That method is called tabular, according to which a complete 
structure is presented in its entire connection. 

Section 119 

5. Acroamatic or Erotematic Method 

The method is acroamatic, so far as one teaches alone ; erotematic, 
so far as he also asks questions. The latter method may be again 
divided into dialogistic, or Socratic, and catechetical, according as 
the questions are directed to the understanding or merely to the 
memory. 



262 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

Note. — One can teach erotematically only by means of the So- 
cratic dialogue, in which both parties must question and answer ; 
so that it seems as though the pupil were also teacher. That is to 
say, the Socratic dialogue teaches through questions, by teaching the 
pupil to know his own rational principles and sharpening his atten- 
tion to them. With the ordinary catechism one cannot teach, but 
only ask questions about that which one has taught acroamatically. 
Hence the catechetical method is good only for empirical and 
historical knowledge, while the dialogistic is adapted to rational 
knowledge. 

Section 120 

Meditation 

By meditation we understand reflection, or methodiv^al thinking. 
Meditation must accompany all reading and learning ; and for this 
it is necessary that one jfirst of all institute preliminary investiga- 
tions, and then arrange his thoughts in order, or combine them 
according to a method. 



IX 
THE PEDAGOGY OF PHILOSOPHY 

In all instruction of youth there is this difficulty, that one is 
obliged to anticipate the years with insight, and, without awaiting 
the maturity of the understanding, is supposed to conditions 

impart such knowledge as, in the natural order of for teaching 
things, could be grasped only by a practised and Philosophy, 
tried reason. Hence arise the eternal prejudices of the schools, 
which are more stubborn and frequently more absurd than ordi- 
nary prejudices, and the precocious volubility of young thinkers, 
which is blinder than any other form of self-conceit, and more 
incurable than ignorance. However, this difficulty is not altogether 
to be avoided, for in the age of a very ornate civil constitution the 
finer insights belong to the means of progress, and become neces- 
sities which, from their nature, can be really reckoned only as 
ornaments of life, and, as it were, as the unnecessary-beautiful. 
At the same time, it is possible to make pubhc instruction conform 
better to nature in this respect also, if not to make them agree 
entirely. For, since the natural progress of human knowledge is 
this, that the understanding is first developed by arriving, through 
experience, at intuitive judgments, and, through these, at concepts, 
that thereupon these concepts are recognized in relation to their 
grounds and results by reason, and finally in a well-arranged whole 
by means of science, so instruction must go the same way. Hence 
a teacher is expected to make of his hearer first an intelligent, then 
a reasonable, and finally a learned man. Such a procedure has this 
advantage, that, although the pupil may never reach the last stage, 
as usually happens, yet he has profited by the instruction, and has 
become more resourceful, and wiser, for life, if not for the school. 

263 



264 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

If this method is reversed, the pupil snaps up a kind of reason 
before his understanding is developed, and he wears borrowed 
science, which is only, as it were, stuck on to him, and not grown 
on, whereby his mental ability remains as unfruitful as ever, and 
at the same time has become much more corrupt by the illusion 
of wisdom. This is the reason why one often meets learned men 
(real students) who give evidence of little understanding, and it is 
the reason why the universities send more insipid men out into the 
world than any other class of the general public. 

Hence the rule for the conduct of instruction is as follows : to 
first mature the understanding and accelerate its growth by exer- 
Methodof cising the pupil in judgments of experience and 

teaching making him attentive to that which the compared 

Philosophy. impressions of his senses can teach him. He should 
not make a bold leap from these judgments or concepts to the 
higher and more distant ones, but rather reach them by the natural 
and beaten foot-path of the lower concepts, which lead him further 
by degrees ; but all according to that intellectual ability which the 
previous exercise has necessarily produced in him, and not accord- 
ing to that which the teacher observes in himself, or thinks he 
observes, and which he also falsely presupposes in the case of his 
hearer. In short, he is to learn, not thoughts, but thinking ; he is 
to be guided, not carried, if he is to be able to walk alone in the 
future. 

Such a method demands the very nature of philosophy itself. 
But, since this is really an occupation for maturity alone, it is no 
wonder that difficulties arise when one tries to accommodate it 
to unskilled youthful ability. The youth released from school 
instruction was accustomed to learn. Now he thinks he will learn 
philosophy; but that is impossible, for he must now learn to 
philosophize. I will explain my meaning more clearly. All the 
sciences which one can learn, in the real sense of the term, can be 
divided into two kinds : the historical and the mathematical. To 
the first belong, aside from history, strictly speaking, natural 
history, philology, positive law, etc. But now, since in everything 
historical, personal experience or external testimony, but in every- 



SELECTIONS 265 

thing mathematical, the obviousness of concepts and the infallibility 
of demonstration, go to make up that which is indeed given, and 
hence on hand, and, as it were, only to be picked up, it follows 
that it is possible to learn in both, — i.e., to impress either upon the 
memory or upon the understanding that which can be laid before 
us as an already complete discipline. Hence, in order to learn 
philosophy too, there must necessarily be one at hand. One would 
have to be able to produce a book, and to say, "See, here is wis- 
dom and reliable insight ; learn to understand and grasp it ; build 
upon it in the future, then you are philosophers." Now, until some 
one shows me such a book of philosophy, to which I can refer, — as, 
for example, to Polybius, to explain a circumstance of history, or 
to Euclid, to explain a proposition in geometry, — I beg to be allowed 
to say that the confidence of the general public is abused when, 
instead of extending the intellectual ability of the youth confided 
to one's care, and developing them to a future more mature per- 
sonal insight, one circumvents it with an alleged already complete 
philosophy, contrived for the benefit of others ; wherefrom results 
a false show of science, which only in a certain place, and among 
certain people, passes for real coin, but which everywhere else is 
in bad repute. The peculiar method of instruction in philosophy 
is zetetic, as some ancients called it (from ^iTerj/), — i.e., seeking, — 
and becomes only in more practised reason, in various connections, 
dogmatic, — i.e., decided. The philosophical author whom one 
selects as the basis of a course of instruction should be regarded, 
not as the model of judgment, but only as an occasion to judge of 
him, yes, even against him ; and the method of reflecting for him- 
self, and coming to conclusions, is the thing, facility in which the 
pupil is really seeking, and which alone can be useful to him ; and 
the different forms of knowledge which he may thereby gain are 
to be regarded as accidental results, for whose rich abundance he 
has only to plant the fruitful roots in himself. . . . 

If we compare with this the usual procedure, which differs from 
it so greatly, much can be understood which seems strange. As, 
for example, why there is no kind of learning in handicraft, 
wherein so many masters are found, as in philosophy ; and, since 



266 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

many of those who have learned history, jurisprudence, mathe- 
matics, etc., say themselves that they have not, however, yet 

learned enough to teach these subjects, why, on the 
Philosophy other hand, there is seldom one who does not seri- 
other Subjects, ously imagine that, besides his other occupation, it 

would be quite possible for him to give lectures on 
logic, ethics, etc., if he cared to trouble himself with such trifles. 
The reason is that in the former sciences there is a common stand- 
ard, but in the latter each person has his own. None the less, one 
can plainly see that it is very unnatural for philosophy to be a 
bread-earning art, since it is contrary to its very nature to have to 
conform to the illusion of demand and to the law of fashion, and 
that necessity, in whose power philosophy is still, can force it to 
press itself into the form of common approval. . . . 

Logic. — Of this science there are really two kinds. The first 
kind is a criticism and guidance of the healthy understanding, as, 
on the one hand, it approaches coarse concepts and 
Two Kinds of ignorance, and, on the other, science and learning, 
and Special. ^^ ^^ the logic of this kind which should be pre- 
supposed in the beginning of all academic instruc- 
tion in philosophy ; the quarantine, as it were (provided I am per- 
mitted to express myself thus), which must be passed by the student 
who wishes to go from the land of prejudice and error into the 
realm of clear reason and science. The second kind of logic is 
the criticism and guidance of specific scholarship, and can never be 
treated other than according to the sciences whose organon it 
should be, in order that the proceeding which has been used in 
the application may become more uniform, and that the nature 
of the discipline, together with the means of its improvement, 
may be understood. In such a manner I shall add at the end of 
metaphysics a consideration of its own peculiar method, as an 
organon of this science, which would not be in its right place at 
the beginning, because it is impossible to make the rules clear in 
the absence of examples by means of which they can be shown 
in concreto. The teacher must, to be sure, be master of the organon 



SELECTIONS 267 

from the beginning before he lectures upon the science, in order to 
guide himself by it, but he must never lecture on it to the student 
other than at the very end of the course. The criticism and 
guidance of the entire world-wisdom as a totality, this complete 
logic, thus has its place in instruction only at the end of all phi- 
losophy, since the then acquired acquaintance with it and the 
history of human opinions alone make it possible to present con- 
siderations on the origin of its insights, as well as of its errors, 
and to project the exact outlines, according to which such a struc- 
ture of reason is to be erected permanently and uniformly. 

I will lecture on the logic of the first kind, using the manual 
of Professor Meier ; since he has in mind the limits of my present 
purposes, and at the same time gives opportunity to include, along 
with the culture of the finer and scholarly reason, the training of 
the common but active and sound understanding, the former for 
the reflective, the latter for the active and civic hfe. At the same 
time, in connection with the criticism of reason, the very close re- 
lation of the contents gives opportunity to glance briefly at the 
criticism of taste, — that is, aesthetics,— ihQ rules of one always 
serving to illustrate the rules of the other, and their contrasts are 
but means of comprehending both better. — Announcement of the 
Arrangement of his Lectures for the Winter Semester, 1765-1766, 
Hartenstein, ii. pp. 313-316, 318. 



THE ACQUISITION OF CHARACTER 

The man who is conscious of having a character, according to 
his manner of thought, does not have it from nature's hand, but 

must always have acquired it. We can also assume 
Character and ^^vAi its foundation, like a kind of regeneration, a 
Experience. certain solemnity of the vow which he makes to 

himself, makes it and the time when this change in 
him took place ever memorable, like a new epoch. Training, 
examples, and instruction cannot possibly accomplish this firmness 
and perseverance in principles gradually, but only, as it were, by 
an explosion following all at once upon the satiety of the wavering 
condition of instinct. Perhaps there will be but few who have 
attempted this revolution before their thirtieth year, and still 
fewer who are firmly grounded before their fortieth. To try to 
become a better man by piecemeal is a vain attempt ; for one im- 
pression fades away while one is working on another ; but the 
foundation of a character is absolute unity of the inner principle 
of the conduct of life. It is also said that poets have no character ; 
for example, they offend their best friends rather than give up a 
witty jest ; or that character is not to be found among courtiers, 
who have to accommodate themselves to all sorts of forms ; and 
that firmness of character is an uncertain thing among the clergy, 
who pay court to the Lord of Heaven, but at the same time, and in 
the same frame of mind, to the lords of the earth ; that thus to 
have an inner (moral) character is, and will always be, only a 
pious wish. But perhaps ih^ philosophers are to blame for this, in 
that they have never yet set this concept by itself in a sufficiently 
clear light, and have tried to represent virtue only in fragments, 
268 



SELECTIONS 269 

but never in its whole beautiful form, and to make it interesting 
for all men. 

In a word, to have made truthfulness in the inmost recesses of 
one's acknowledgment to one's self and at the same time in one's 
behavior towards others, one's highest maxim, is a man's sole 
proof of the consciousness of having a character ; and since this 
is the minimum which can be demanded of a rational man, but at 
the same time the maximum of inner worth (of human dignity), 
he must, in order to be a man of principles (to have a definite 
character), be capable of the most common human reason, and 
hence superior to the greatest talent, in point of dignity. — Anthro- 
pology, etc., Hartenstein, vii. pp. 616, 617. 



XI 
METHOD IN MORAL INSTRUCTION 

That pedagogy and ethics were almost synonymous terms for 
Kant, at least in their more empirical aspects, appears strongly in 
Ethics and ^^^ following group of selections. Irrespective of the 

Pedagogy ultimate foundations of ethics, the establishment of 

Synonymous. ^^ij moral laws stood before him incomplete without 
a treatment of the problem of how these laws can be set into the 
experience of the individual. This attitude of mind comes out 
clearly in his critical and technical writings, where one would be 
least apt to look for it ; whereas the Lecture-Notes scarce reflect 
this pedagogic moralism which agitated Kant in his philosophical 
moods. Indeed, the problem of moral education can be looked 
upon as the link connecting the Critical Philosophy with the peda- 
gogical interests which seemed to antedate the development of that 
philosophy. 



I 

The following selections practically comprise the second part of 
the Critique of Practical Reason (1788), being the "Methodology 
of pure practical reason, ' ' and find their place here in view of the 
observation made above, and especially in view of the central po- 
sition which they occupy in the development of the Critical system : 

... By this methodology is understood the manner in which 

one can procure for the laws of pure practical reason 

Ethics access into the human mind and influence upon its 

maxims, — that is, make the objectively practical 

reason also subjectively i>T3iciica\. 

270 



SELECTIONS 271 

Now, it is clear that those determining principles of the will 

which alone make the maxims really moral and give them a moral 

value — namely, the direct idea of the law and the 

, . ,. , , T i. -1 J 1 1 Motives of 

objectively necessary obedience of it as duty — must Action. 

be conceived of as the real motives of actions ; be- 
cause otherwise legality of actions would, it is true, be accom- 
plished, but not morality of intentions. But it must appear less 
clear to every one — indeed, at first sight totally improbable — that 
even subjectively that representation of pure virtue could have more 
power over the human mind, and be a much stronger motive in 
accomplishing that very legality of actions, and in producing 
stronger decisions to prefer the law from regard for it, to any other 
consideration, than all the allurements which arise from delusive 
ideas of pleasure and of all that which we reckon as happiness, 
or even than all threats of pain and evils. However, this is really 
the case, and were not human nature thus constituted, no man- 
ner of representing the law by means of digressions and recom- 
mendations would ever produce morality of intentions. It would 
be mere hypocrisy. . . . 

To be sure, it cannot be denied that, in order to lead either an as 
yet unformed, or even a demoralized, character into the path of the 
morally good, some preparatory guidance is required . 

to lure it to its own advantage or to frighten it Training in 

through fear of injury ; but as soon as this mechan- Morals 

NccGSS&rv 
ical work, this leading-string, has had some little 

effect, the pure moral motive must by all means be presented to 
the mind, which, not only because it is the only thing which 
founds a character (practical consequent mode of thought accord- 
ing to unchangeable maxims), but also because it teaches man to 
feel his own dignity, gives the mind a power, unsuspected even by 
himself, to tear himself loose from all sensuous adherence, in so 
far as it aims at governing, and to find ample recompense in the 
independence of his intelligible nature and of the greatness of soul, 
to which he sees himself destined, for the sacrifices which he makes. 
Thus we wish to prove by observations, such as any one can 
make, this characteristic of our mind, this susceptibility to a pure 



272 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

moral interest, and consequently the moving power of a pure idea 
of virtue, when it is properly brought home to the human heart, 
as the most powerful, and, when it comes to duration and punc- 
tuality in following moral maxims, as the only motive for the good^ 
At the same time it must be remembered that, if these observa- 
tions only prove the reality of such a feeling, but not a resulting 
moral improvement, this does no harm to the only method of 
making the objectively practical laws of pure reason subjectively 
practical by the mere pure force of the idea of duty, as though it 
were an empty fantasy. For, since this method has never been 
put into operation, experience cannot show anything of its results ; 
one can only demand proofs of the susceptibility to such motives, 
which I will now briefly indicate, and afterwards sketch in a few 
words the method of the foundation and cultivation of genuine 
moral characters. 

When one observes the course of conversation in mixed com- 
panies, consisting not only of scholars and subtle reasoners, but 

also of business men, and of women, one notices 
Dailv^Life^^ ^^^^' ^^^sides telling stories and joking, another form 

of entertainment finds a place, — namely, argument ; 
for the first, if it is to be new and interesting, is soon exhausted, 
while the second easily becomes insipid. Now, in all argument 
there is nothing which more arouses the participation of people who 
are usually easily bored by all subtle discussion, and which brings 
about more liveliness in the company, than that about the moral 
value of this or that action, by which the character of any person 
is to be made out. Those to whom everything subtle and specu- 
lative in theoretical questions is usually dry and tiresome soon 
join in when it is a question of deciding the moral content of 
a related good or bad action, and they are as exact, as specula- 
tive, as subtle in thinking out everything which could reduce, or 
even throw suspicion upon the purity of intention and conse- 
quently the degree of virtue in it, as no one would expect from 
them in the case of any other object of speculation. 

I do not know why the educators of youth have not long since 
made use of this inclination of reason to enter with pleasure upon 



SELECTIONS 273 

even the most subtle examination of suggested practical questions, 
and why, after having laid a purely moral catechism at the foun- 
dation, they have not searched the biographies of Biography 
ancient and modern times with the intention of get- and Ethical 
ting illustrations of the duties laid down, on which, Teaching, 
principally by the comparison of similar actions under different cir- 
cumstances, they might exercise the judgment of their pupils in 
noting their greater or less moral significance. In this way they 
would find that even early youth, otherwise as yet immature for all 
speculation, soon becomes very sharp-sighted, and not a little in- 
terested as it feels the progress of its judgment ; but the principal 
thing is that it can be hoped with confidence that the frequent exer- 
cise in knowing good conduct and in applauding it, and in noticing 
even the slightest deviation from it with regret or contempt, even if 
done up to this point only as a play of judgment in which children 
can vie with each other, will yet leave behind a lasting impression 
of esteem, on the one hand, and abhorrence, on the other, which, 
through the mere habit of frequently regarding such actions as 
worthy of praise or blame, would make a good foundation for 
uprightness in the future course of life. Only, I would spare 
them examples of so-called noble (extra-meritorious) actions, with 
which our sentimental writings are so lavish, and would refer 
everything to duty and to the value which a man can and must 
give himself in his own eyes through the consciousness of not 
having transgressed it, because that which runs out into empty 
wishes and longings for unattainable perfection produces mere 
novel heroes who, while they pride themselves upon their feeling 
for the transcendentally great, free themselves thereby from the 
observance of their common and ordinary responsibility, which 
then seems to them unimportant. 

. . . We will first point out the criterion of pure virtue by 
means of an example, and, supposing that it be submitted to a ten- 
year-old boy for his judgment, we will see whether he would 
necessarily be obliged to judge as he does without being led to it 
by the teacher. Let some one relate the story of an honest man 
whom one is trying to persuade to join the slanderers of an inno- 

18 



274 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

cent and helpless person (as, for example, Anne Boleyn upon the 

accusation of Henry VHI. of England). He is offered rewards, — 

„, , ,. , that is, valuable presents or high rank ; he refuses 

Illustration of . . 

Method in them. This will call forth mere praise and approval 

developing the in the mind of the hearer, because it is gain. Now 
he is threatened with loss. Among these slanderers 
are his best friends, who now withdraw their friendship, near rela- 
tives who threaten to disown him (he is poor), powerful persons who 
can persecute and wound him in every place and circumstance, a 
reigning prince who threatens him with loss of freedom, yes, of life 
itself. Now, that his cup of suffering may be full, in order to make 
him feel deeply, one may represent his family, threatened with the 
most extreme distress and poverty, as begging him to yield, and him, 
although honest, yet with feelings not firm and unresponsive either 
to pity or to his own need, at a moment in which he wishes never 
to have seen this day which exposes him to such unspeakable pain, 
yet remaining true to his principle of uprightness, without wavering 
and without doubting : my youthful hearer is led by steps from 
mere approval to admiration, from there to amazement, finally to 
the greatest reverence and a lively wish to be such a man himself 
(although not, to be sure, in his condition). . . . Thus morality 
must have the more power over the human heart the more purely 
it is presented. From this it follows that if the law of morals and 
the image of holiness and virtues are to exercise any influence at 
all upon our minds, they can exercise it only in so far as they are 
laid to heart pure, unmixed with any ideas of well-being, as a 
motive, because they show themselves most splendidly in suffering. 
To call attention to this method is more necessary than ever in 
our age, when it is hoped to have more effect upon the mind with 
The Pedagogy ^°^*'' "i^l^^ing feelings, or lofty, swelling pretensions 
of his Age which weaken, rather than strengthen, the heart, 

Morally Weak, tj^^n by means of the plain and serious idea of duty 
more suitable to human imperfection and to progress in the good. 
It is completely contrary to the end in mind to set honorable, mag- 
nanimous, and deserving actions before children for their model, 
with the intention of attracting them to such actions by inspiring 



SELECTIONS 275 

them with enthusiasm. For, since they are still so backward in the 
observation of the commonest duty, and even in the correct judg- 
ment of it, this amounts merely to making dreamers of them be- 
times. But even among instructed and experienced men this sup- 
posed motive has, if not a detrimental, at least no genuine moral 
effect upon the heart, which, however, is what it was desired to 
accomplish. 

AU feelings must accomplish their effect in that moment when 
they are most lively and before they subside, especially those which 
are to produce unusual effort, or they do nothing ; for 
the heart naturally returns to its usual moderate i;ersMs Feelings 
action, and then falls into the debility which charac- 
terized it previously, because something was used merely to excite, 
but not to strengthen it. Principles must be based on concepts ; 
on any other foundation can arise only spasmodic efforts, which 
can give the individual no moral worth, nor even create self-con- 
fidence, without which the consciousness of his moral disposition 
and of such a character, the highest good in man, cannot exist at 
all. . . . 

The method then proceeds as follows. . . . Now, there is no 
doubt that this practice and the consciousness of a culture thus 
arising, of our reason judging merely of the practical, rpj^^ Psycho- 
must gradually produce a certain interest even in logical Basis of 
the law of reason, and consequently in morally good ^^^ Method, 
actions. For we finally come to love that the consideration of which 
makes us feel the extended employment of our cognitive powers, 
which is especially promoted by that wherein we find moral justi- 
fication ; since the reason can be contented only in such an order 
of things wherein, by its own power, it is able to determine a priori, 
according to principles, what should happen. An observer of 
nature also comes to prefer those objects which at first were 
objectionable to him, when he discovers the great finality in 
their organization, and so his reason is charmed in contem- 
plating it. . . . 

But this exercise of the judgment, which makes us feel our own 
cognitive powers, is not yet true interest in the actions and their 



276 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

morality. It merely shows that man likes to amuse himself with 
such a criticism, and it gives to virtue, or the mode of think- 
The True Aim ^^^ according to moral laws, a form of beauty which 
in Moral is admired, but is not on that account sought after 

Teaching. (laudatur et alget) ; as everything a consideration 

of which produces subjectively a consciousness of the harmony 
of our powers of representation, and whereby we feel our entire 
cognitive powers (understanding and imagination) strengthened, 
produces a satisfaction which may be communicated to others, 
while the existence of the object remains indifferent to us be- 
cause it is regarded only as the occasion of becoming conscious 
of the endowment of the talents in us which are elevated above 
animal nature. Now, however, the second exercise begins its 
work, — namely, to make observable the purity of will in a living 
exposition of the moral disposition by examples, first only as its 
negative perfection, in so far as in an action done from duty no 
motives of inclination have any determining influence ; whereby 
the pupil is kept attentive to the consciousness of his freedom; 
and although this renunciation causes pain in the beginning, yet, 
by releasing that pupil from the constraint of even real needs, a 
freedom from the manifold discontent in which all these needs 
involve him is announced, and the mind is prepared for the recep- 
tion of contentment from other sources. Thus the heart is freed 
and lightened of a burden which is always secretly oppressing it, 
when by pure moral decisions, examples of which are cited, an 
inner power, otherwise not known to him, is disclosed to man, the 
inner freedom to release himself from the violent importunity of 
the inclinations to such a degree that none, not even the dearest, 
shall have any influence at all upon a decision for which we are 
now to use our reason. . . . Upon this [respect for ourselves], 
when it is well grounded, when man fears nothing so much as to 
find himself, upon self-examination, contemptible and worthless in 
his own eyes, can every good moral disposition be grafted ; because 
this is the best, yes, the only guard to keep at a distance from the 
mind the pressure of ignoble and destructive impulses. 

I have wished only to point out the most general maxims of the 



SELECTIONS 277 

methodology of moral cultivation and exercise. Since the diversity 
of duties requires special determination for each variety, and hence 
would be such a prolix affair, I shall be excused if, in a work like 
this, which is only preparatory, I content myself with these out- 
lines. — Hartenstein, v. pp. 157-167. 



II 

In discussing ''The Indwelling of the Bad Principles along with 
the Good; or. The Radical Evil in Human Nature," in the first 
part of the philosophical theory of religion (1792), Kant observes : 

. . . The moral culture of man must begin, not with the im- 
provement of his morals, but with the transformation of his mode 

of thought and with the founding of a character ; 

Moral Culture 
although usually one proceeds differently, and fights Dependent on 

singly against vices, but leaves their common root Mental 

undisturbed. Now, even the most narrow-minded Processes. 

man is capable of the impression of all the greater respect for a 

dutiful action the more he withdraws from it in his thoughts 

other motives which could, through self-love, influence the maxim 

of the action ; and even children are capable of detecting even the 

slightest trace of a mixture of impure motives ; for then the action 

loses at once, in their eyes, all moral value. This capacity for 

good is 'cultivated incomparably, and gradually goes over into the 

mode of thought, by citing the example even of good men, and 

letting one's moral pupils judge the impurity of many maxims 

from the real motives of their actions ; so that duty, for duty's own 

sake, begins to gain noticeable weight in their hearts. But to teach 

children to admire virtuous actions, however much sacrifice they 

may have cost, is not the right disposition for the mind of the pupil 

to get towards the morally good. For however virtuous one may be, 

yet all the good which he can ever do is only duty ; but to do one's 

duty is nothing more than to do that which is in the usual moral 

order, consequently does not deserve to be admired. This ad- 



278 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

miration is rather a lowering of our feeling for duty, just as though 
it were something extraordinary and meritorious to obey it. — Hart- 
enstein, vi. pp. 142, 143. 



Ill 

Section 97 



Kant's interest in the problem of moral instruction continued 
with increasing vigor and clearness, as may be seen in the follow- 
ing selection from his last great work on ethical philosophy, being 
the major portion of the first section of the second part, " Ethical 
Methodology," of the Metaphysical Elements of Ethics (1797), Hart- 
enstein, vii. pp. 289-297 : 

Ethical Didactics 

Section 49 

That virtue must be acquired (is not innate) lies in the very 

nature of its concept, without there being any necessity to refer to 

anthropological knowledge derived from experience. 

Virtue is not p^^ ^^^ ^^^^j faculty of men would not be virtue 

Innate. •' 

were it not produced by the strength of the resolu- 
tion in the conflict with such powerful opposing inclinations. It 
is the product of pure practical reason, in so far as the latter, in 
the consciousness of its superiority, gains through freedom the 
upper hand over those inclinations. 

That virtue can and must be taught follows naturally from the fact 
that it is not innate ; thus the theory of virtue is a doctrine. But 
because power to carry out the rules is not acquired 
Product of by means of the simple theory as to how one shall 

Teaching. conduct himself in order to conform to the idea of 

virtue, the Stoics thought that virtue could not be taught by mere 
representation of duty, by admonitions, but that it must be culti- 



SELECTIONS 279 

vated, trained by attempts to withstand man's inner enemy (ascet- 
ically) ; that one cannot do at once everything he ivishes to do, if 
he has not previously tried and trained his powers, to do which 
a resolution must be at once and fully made ; because otherwise the 
mind (animus), by capitulation to vice, in the hope of quitting it 
gradually, would be impure and vicious in itself, and therefore 
could produce no virtue (as virtue rests upon one single principle). 



Section 50 

As to the doctrinal method (for every scientific theory must be 
methodical, otherwise the exposition would be tumultuous), it must 
also not be fragmentary, but systematic, if the theory j^ , , , 

of virtue is to represent a science. However, the ex- teaching 

position may be either acroamatic, since all those to Virtue, 

whom it is addressed are mere hearers, or erotematic, where the 
teacher asks his pupils questions about that which he wishes to 
teach them ; and, again, this erotematic method is either dialogis- 
tical, as when he puts questions to their reason, or catechetical, as 
when he merely puts questions to their memory. For when one 
examines the reason of another, it can be done in no other than a 
dialogistic way, — i.e., when teacher and pupil both ask and answer 
questions. By questioning, the teacher guides his pupil's train of 
thought, in that he merely develops the disposition to certain 
concepts which it already contains, by means of cited instances 
(he is the midwife of his pupil's thoughts) ; the pupil, who thus 
becomes aware of the fact that he is able to think for himself, 
brings it about, by liis counter-questions (about obscurity, or the 
doubt which opposes the granted principles), that the teacher him- 
self, according to the docendo discimus, learns how best to question. 
(For it is a demand which concerns logic, and one not yet suffi- 
ciently taken to heart : that it furnish rules as to how one shall seek 
appropriately, — i.e., not always merely for determining, but also for 
jpre^mmary judgments (Judicia prcevia), which will be suggestive j 
a theory which can serve even the mathematician as a cue to dis- 
coveries and which is often utihzed by him.) 



280 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

Section 51 

The first and most necessary doctrinal instrument of the theory 

of virtue for the raw pupil is a moral catechism. This must pre- 

* Tvr ^ r^ ^ ccde the religious catechism, and cannot be woven 
A Moral Gate- ^ ' 

chism Most into the teachings of religion as a mere interpolation, 
Important. jj^^ must be taught by itself, and as an independent 

whole ; for the transition from the theory of virtue to religion can 
be made only through purely moral principles, because otherwise 
religious creeds would be impure. Hence precisely the greatest 
and most worthy theologians have hesitated to draw up a cate- 
chism for that theory of religion required by state laws, and to 
vouch for it ; yet one would believe that this were the least which 
one were justified in expecting from the great treasure-house of 
their learning. 

On the other hand, a rnoral catechism, as a foundation of the 
duties of virtue, meets with no such scruples or difficulties, be- 
cause it can be developed from common human un- 
Pedaffogical derstanding (so far as its content is concerned) and 
must be adapted to the didactic rules of primary in- 
struction (so far as the form is concerned). But the Socratic-dial- 
ogistic method does not vouchsafe the formal principle of such in- 
struction for this purpose ; because the pupil does not know how 
to question ; the teacher is the only questioner. But the answer 
which he methodically entices from the pupiPs reason must be 
couched and preserved, hence confided to his memory, in decided, 
not easily altered, expressions ; in which particular the catechetical 
method differs as well from the acroamatic (wherein the teacher 
speaks alone) as from the dialogistic (wherein both parties ques- 
tion and answer). 

Section 52. 

The experimental (technical) means for the formation of virtue is 
the good example ^ in the teacher himself (to be of exemplary guid- 

^ Beispiel (example), a German word, which is usually em- 
ployed synonymously with Exempel (example), is not really of the 



SELECTIONS 281 

ance) and the warning example in others ; for imitation is, in the 
yet uncultivated man, the first effort of will towards the adoption 
of maxims which he subsequently makes for him- 
self. The contracting of habits is the foundation of of the 

a persistent inclination without any maxims at all, Teacher's 

by the frequent satisfaction of the inclination ; and xamp 

it is a mechanism of the disposition rather than a principle of 
the mode of thinking, whereby forgetting becomes subsequently 
more difficult than learning. But as to the force of the example 
(be it for good or evil) which may be offered to our natural bent 
for imitation or for warning, that which others give us cannot 
found maxims of virtue. For these maxims consist precisely in 
the subjective autonomy of the practical reason of each individual ; 
therefore the law, and not the behavior of other men, must be our 
guiding principle. Hence the educator will not say to his demoral- 
ized pupil, "See the example that good (orderly, industrious) boy 
gives you !" for that would only cause him to hate the good boy, 
because he places him in a disadvantageous light. The good ex- 
ample (the exemplary conduct) is not to serve as a pattern, but 
only as a proof of the practicableness of that which duty demands ; 
thus it is not the comparison with some other man (as he is), but 
with the idea (of humanity) of what he should be, hence with the 
law, which must supply the teacher the never-failing standard of 
his instruction. 



same significance. To take an Exempel from something, and to 
cite a Beispiel in explanation of an expression, are two totally 
different concepts. An Exempel is a particular case of a practical 
rule, in so far as the latter represents the practicability or imprac- 
ticability of an action. A Beispiel, on the other hand, is only the 
particular (concretum), represented as contained in the general ac- 
cording to concepts (abstractum), and is hence only the theoretical 
representation of a concept. [A note by Kant] . 



282 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

Note 
Fragment of a Moral Catechism 

The teacher puts questions to his pupil's reason about that which 
he wishes to teach him, and when the pupil does not know how to 
answer the question, the teacher suggests the answer to him 
(guiding his reason). 

Teacher. — What is your greatest, yes, your whole desire in life? 

Pupil — (is silent). 

Teacher. — That you may always have everything you wish for. 
What is such a condition called ? 

Pupil — (is silent). 

Teacher. — It is called happiness (perpetual prosperity, joyous 
life, complete contentment with one's condition). Now, if you 
held in your hand all the happiness (which is possible in the 
world), would you keep it all for yourself, or would you divide it 
with your fellow-men ? 

Pupil. — I would divide it ; make others happy and contented too. 

Teacher. — That shows that you have a pretty good heart ; but let 
us see whether you have a good understanding too. Would you 
provide a lazy man with soft pillows, so that he might spend his 
life in sweet idleness, or keep a drunkard supplied with wine and 
whatever else is necessary for intoxication, or give a cheat an 
agreeable form and manners with which to outwit others, or the 
violent man boldness and a strong fist, that he be able to overpower 
others? These are means which every one desires in order to be 
happy in his own way. 

Pupil. — No, not that. 

Teacher. — So you see that if you had all the happiness in your 
hand, and had the best intentions in the world, you would not 
hand it over to every one who wished to seize it, without consider- 
ation, but you would first try to find out how worthy of happiness 
each one was. But you would not hesitate first to supply yourself 
with everything you thought essential to your own happiness ? 

Pupil.— Yes. [No?] 

Teacher. — But would it not occur to you to ask yourself whether 
you deserve to be happy or not? 



SELECTIONS 283 

Pupil. — To be sure. 

Teacher. — That in you which strives for happiness is inclination; 
but that which limits your inclination to the condition that you 
first be worthy of that happiness is your reason, and that through 
your reason you can limit and overcome your inclination, that is 
the freedom of your will. Now, for knowing how to go about 
having your share of happiness and yet not being unworthy of it, 
you have the rule and the instructions solely in your reason; that 
is the same as saying that it is not necessary to learn this rule of 
your conduct from experience, or from other people ; your own 
reason teaches and enjoins upon you what you have to do. For 
example, when it happens that you can gain a great advantage for 
yourself or for your friends by a well-planned falsehood, and yet 
not harm any one else, what does your reason say to that? 

Pupil. — I must not lie, no matter how great the advantage might 
be for me and my friend. Lying is base and makes a man un- 
worthy to be happy. This is an unconditioned necessity through 
a command, or a prohibition, of reason, which I must obey ; in 
the face of which all my inclinations must be silent. 

Teacher. — What do we call this necessity which is laid directly 
upon us by reason, to act according to its law ? 

Pupil. — It is called duty. 

Teacher. — Hence the observance of his duty is the universal and 
sole condition of man's worthiness to be happy, and the two are 
one and the same thing. But even when we are conscious of such 
a good and active intention, through which we consider ourselves 
worthy (at least not unworthy) to be happy, can we found on this 
the firm hope of being happy ? 

Pupil. — No, not upon that alone ; for it is not always in our 
power to secure it, and the course of nature is not of itself directed 
according to merit, but the happiness of life (our well-being 
generally) depends upon circumstances which are by no means 
under man's control. So our happiness remains only a wish with- 
out ever becoming a hope, unless some other power is added to it. 

Teacher. — Is reason justified in accepting such a power, which 
distributes happiness according to man's merits and shortcomings. 



284 EDUCATIONAL THEORY OF IMMANUEL KANT 

controls all nature, and rules the world with the highest wisdom, 
— i.e., in believing in God? 

Pupil. — Yes ; for we see in the works of nature, which we can 
judge, such diffused and deep wisdom as we can explain to 
ourselves in no other way than as the unspeakably great art of a 
World-Creator, from whom, then, in that which concerns the moral 
order, in which the greatest ornament of the world consists, we 
are justified in expecting an equally wise rule, — namely, that when 
we do not make ourselves unworthy of happiness, which we do by 
not fulfilling our duty, we may hope to come in for our share of it. 



In this catechism, which must be carried out through all the 
articles of virtue and of vice, the greatest attention must be directed 
to founding the law of duty, not upon the advantages 
c t ^^ ° ^ ^^ disadvantages which man will reap from its ob- 
servance, but purely upon moral principle ; and that 
these advantages or disadvantages be mentioned only incidentally, 
as in themselves dispensable additions, but which serve the palate 
of the naturally weak as mere vehicles. The shamefulness, not the 
harmfulness of vice (for the doer himself) must be ever prominently 
represented. For when the dignity of virtue in actions is not 
elevated above all else, the idea of duty itself disappears and dis- 
solves into mere pragmatic precepts ; for then man's nobility dis- 
appears from his own consciousness, and he is corruptible and for 
sale at the price which seductive inclinations offer him. Now, 
when this is developed wisely and at the proper time, from man's 
own reason according to the differences in age, in sex, and in 
social status, still there is something which must form the conclu- 
sion, which stirs the soul deeply, and sets man in a place where he 
cannot but regard himself with the greatest admiration for his own 
innate dispositions, the impression of which never disappears. 
Thus when, at the close of his instruction, his duties are once 
more summarized (recapitulated) in their order, when, in the case 
of each of them, he is reminded that all the evils, hardships, and 
sufferings of life, even the threat of death which may come to him 



SELECTIONS 285 

just because of his obedience to duty, cannot rob him of the con- 
sciousness that he is superior to and master of them all, the ques- 
tion arises at once : What is it within you which believes itself 
able to combat all the powers of nature in and around you, and to 
conquer them when they oppose your moral principles? When 
this question, whose solution entirely transcends the power of 
speculative reason, and which yet arises of itself, is laid to heart, 
the incomprehensibility in this self-knowledge must give the soul 
an exaltation which excites it the more strongly to the observance 
of its duties the more it is attacked. 

In this catechetical moral instruction it would be of great value 
to moral education to raise some casuistic questions at each analysis 
of duty, and to let the assembled children test their 

understanding, how each one would think to solve ^ .^f 

^ Casuistry, 

the ensnaring problem given him. Not only because 

this is a culture of the reason best suited to the ability of an unin- 
formed person (because reason can decide much easier in ques- 
tions as to what duty is than in regard to speculative questions), 
and hence the most feasible way of sharpening the understanding 
of youth generally, but especially because it is man's nature to 
love that in the study of which he has acquired systematic knowl- 
edge (in which he is now well posted), and thus the pupil is, by 
such exercises as these, drawn unconsciously into the interest of 
morality. 

But it is of the greatest importance in education not to mix the 
moral catechism with the religious catechism (to amalgamate them), 
much less to let the former follow the latter ; but rather always to 
make the former very clear, with the greatest industry and minute- 
ness of detail. For, without this, religion will result in nothing 
but hypocrisy, making one acknowledge one's duties from fear, and 
pretend to sympathize with that which is not in one's heart. 



XII 

MORAL INSTRUCTION AND META- 
PHYSICS 

In addition to the selections in the preceding group, the follow- 
ing from The Metaphysics of Morals (1797) clearly show Kant's 
conception of the independence of ethical principles of all anthro- 
pological considerations, and, in turn, the dependence of a true 
pedagogy of morals upon the constructions of a guiding meta- 
physics. 

The counterpart of a metaphysics of morals, as the other portion 

of the division of practical philosophy in general, would be moral 

anthropology, which would contain only the sub- 

^Tf^ , iective conditions, the favorable as well as the un- 

Anthropology. 

favorable, of the realization of the laws of the first 

part, in human nature, the creation, extension, and strengthening 
of moral principles (in the education of the school and public in- 
struction), and other similar teachings and rules which are based 
on experience, and which are indispensable, but which absolutely 
must not be premised before metaphysics, or be mixed with it ; for 
otherwise one runs the danger of producing false, or at least in- 
dulgent moral laws, which represent as unattainable that which is 
not attained simply because the law is not intuited and set forth 
in its purity (in which also its strength consists), or entirely coun- 
terfeit or impure motives are employed for that which in itself is 
conformable to duty and good, and which leaves remaining no 
secure moral principles ; neither as a guide for criticism nor as a 
discipline of the mind in the pursuit of duty, whose rule must 
absolutely be given a priori only through pure reason. — Introduc- 
tion, Hartenstein, vii. p. 14. 
286 



SELECTIONS 287 

... All instruction in morals in lecture-halls, from the pulpit, 

and in popular books becomes ridiculous when it is dressed out 

with metaphysical odds and ends. But it is there- , , . 

Metaphysics 
fore not useless, much less ridiculous, to trace the versus 

basic principles of ethical theory in metaphysics ; Popular Modes 

for one must, as a philosopher, arrive at the prin- ° °^^ ^' 

ciple of the concept of duty ; for otherwise neither certainty nor 

clearness for ethical theory is to be expected. To depend in this 

case upon a certain feeling, which is called moral, because of the 

effect expected from it, can indeed satisfy the popular teacher very 

well ; inasmuch as he desires, as a touchstone of moral duty, to 

reflect upon the problem : If every one in every case made your 

maxim a universal law, how could this maxim be consistent with 

itself? . . . 

But, indeed, no moral principle is based, as is commonly sup- 
posed, on any feeling, but such a principle is really nothing else 
than the obscurely thought metaphysics which resides in the ra- 
tional capacity of every man, as the teacher can easily assure 
himself who attempts to catechize socratically his pupil on the 
imperative of duty and its application to the moral judgment of his 
actions. Its exposition (the technique) need not always be meta- 
physical nor the language necessarily scholastic, if he does not wish 
to train his pupil to be a philosopher. But the thought must ex- 
tend back to the elements of metaphysics, without which we are to 
expect no certainty and purity, yea, not even a motive power in 
ethical theory. 

If one deviates from this principle . . . ethical theory becomes 
corrupted in its source, both in schools and lecture-halls, etc. 
However disgusting metaphysics may be to those supposed teachers 
of philosophy who speak oracularly, or like geniuses, about the 
theory of duty, yet for those who thus usurp the authority of a 
teacher it is an indispensable duty to carry their ethical principles 
back to it, and first of all to go to school on its benches. — Preface 
to Pt. II., Hartenstein, vii. pp. 178, 179. 



XIII 
CONSCIENCE 

Conscience was to Kant a psychological token of the validity of 
his distinction between phenomenon and noumenon, between 
mechanism and freedom, between nature and reason. His further 
characterization of this faculty, which will throw light upon its 
treatment in the Lecture- Notes, is found in the following selections : 

With this agree perfectly the judicial expressions of that won- 
derful power in us which we call conscience. . . . There are in- 
Conscience an stances where men, from their early childhood, even 
Internal with a bringing-up which was profitable to others, 

Power. show wickedness so early, and continue to develop 

thus to maturity, that they are considered born rascals and, so 
far as their mode of thought is concerned, quite incorrigible ; 
but at the same time they are judged for that which they do or 
leave undone, their offences are censured as guilt, yes, they (the 
children) themselves regard these reproofs as well founded, as 
though they, in spite of the hopeless natural characteristics of 
mind attributed to them, were just as responsible as any other 
person. This could not occur if we did not presuppose that every- 
thing which arises from their choice (as, without doubt, every 
intentionally executed action does) is based upon a free causality, 
which from early youth expresses its character in its manifestations 
(the actions). . . . — Critique of Practical Reason (1788), Harten- 
stein, V. pp. 102, 104. 

Conscience is not an acquisition, and there is no obligation to 
acquire it ; but every man, as an ethical being, has it originally in 
himself. To be bound in duty to conscience is as much as saying, 
288 



SELECTIONS 289 

to have the duty to recognize duties. Conscience ... is an un- 
failing fact, not an obligation and duty. ... A lack of conscien- 
tiousness is not lack of conscience, but an inclination not to respect 
its judgments. — The Metaphysical Elements of Ethics, Introduction 
(1797), Hartenstein, vii. p. 204. 

. . . The consciousness of an inner tribunal in man ("before 
which his thoughts accuse or justify one another") is conscience. . . . 

This original intellectual and (since it is the idea of duty) moral 
capacity, called conscience, has this peculiarity, that although its 
business is a business of a man with himself, he is obliged by his 
reason to look upon it as carried on at the command of another 
person. For the transaction is here the conduct of a law-case 
(causa) before a judge. . . . 

... So must conscience be thought of as the subjective princi- 
ple of a responsibility for one's deeds before God, which has to be 
fulfilled.— i6R, vii. pp. 245, 246. 



19 



XIV 

METHOD IN ^ESTHETIC INSTRUC- 
TION 

METHODOLOGY OF TASTE 

The division of a critique into elements and methodology, which 
precedes science, cannot be applied to the critique of taste, be- 
cause there is not, and cannot be, a science of the 
A True 
Pedagogy of beautiful, and the judgment of taste is not deter- 

^sthetics minable by principles. For what pertains to the 

^^^ ^ • scientific in every art which aims at truth in the 
exposition of its object, is, indeed, the indispensable condition 
{conditio sine qua no7i) of fine art, but not art itself. There is, 
therefore, for fine art only a manner (inodus), not a method of instruc- 
tion (methodus). The master must show the pupil what he should 
make and how he should make it ; and the universal rules, to 
which he finally reduces his method, can serve to recall upon occa- 
sion its chief moments rather than dictate them to the pupil. But 
then herewith reference must be made to a certain ideal, which 
art must have in mind, although it may never completely attain 
it in practice. Only by awakening the imagination of the pupil 
to conformity with a given concept, through the observed insuffi- 
ciency of the expression for the idea, which the concept itself does 
not attain, because the idea is aesthetic, and by sharp criticism, 
can it be prevented that the examples which are placed before 
him be regarded by him forthwith as archetypes and even as models 
for imitation subjected to no yet higher norm and to his own 
criticism ; and so that genius be choked, and also with it the free- 
dom of the imagination itself in its conformity to law, without 
290 



SELECTIONS 291 

which no fine art, yea, not even a taste rightly judging it, is 
possible.^ . . . 

. . . The true propaedeutic for the founding of taste is the de- 
velopment of moral ideals and the culture of the moral feelings ; 
since only when sensibility is brought into agreement with this 
can genuine taste take on a definite unchangeable form. — Critique 
of Judgment (1790), Hartenstein, v. pp. 366-368. 

^ The omitted paragraph will be found translated in the Intro- 
duction, p. 88, in connection with intellectual education. 



INDEX 



INDEX 



Abbott ^^' ^^ 

Adolescence, pedagogy of ^^° 

Adolescent, conduct of the ^^^ 

obedience ^^^ ^ 

90 
Esthetic education 

method in ^^^ 

Esthetics 89f,92,267 

Age in education 101, 129 f, 197 

Aim of Pfluoation •^^^' ^^^ 

144 f 



Alphabet, invention of 

Ancients a model " 

Animals 1^1 f' ^f 

Anthropology ^^- ^^ 

Arnoldt ' 

Art (as skill) \\l 

of education ^2, 112, 115 

Artificial education ^^^' ^^^ 

192 

punishment ..[.[[.ZlABOt 

Attention 

Austrian schools 

Ba-- ^ ''^^ 

T5 96 

Bax 

Beauty and moral goodness 

Becker ' 

Benevolence, pedagogy of • 

Bernard ^^^ 

Bernhardi 

T-, "' 

Beyer 

295 



296 INDEX 

PAGE 

Bibliography on Kant 95 f 

Biography and ethical instruction 273 f 

Bird-singing 106 f 

Bock 16 

Body, care of 140 

Bohmer 97 

Botany 175 

Biisching 240, 245 

Burger 77, 97, 186 

O 

Care 101 f, 106, 137, 140 

Cams 96 

Casuistry, value of 285 

Catechism of right 206 

model of 280 ff 

Character 187 ff, 199, 203, 228, 268 ff 

Child, duty for the 191 

differs from the adolescent 192 f 

Childhood, limitations of 196 f 

Churton 96 

Citizenship 84, 189 

Civilization and education 114, 122, 248 f 

and morals 210 

Classics 88 

Coeducation 220 

Comenius 44 

Concept training 232 

Conscience 215, 288 f 

Constraint 130 f, 167 f 

Corrective instruments 145 

Cradle condemned 142 

Crichton 245 

Critique of Judgment 30, 32, 48, 61, 87 f, 91, 177 

Critique of Practical Reason 30 f , 48 

Critique of Pure Reason 30 f , 48 

Crugott 205 

Crying 102, 142 f , 149 

Cultivation 121 f, 247 f 

Culture 102, 157, 163 f, 247 



INDEX 297 

D PAGE 

Dangers in early education 152 

of false impressions 156 

Desires 209 

Destiny Ill 

Development, 60. (See also Evolution.) 

Dignity of humanity 204 

Discipline 101 ff, 121, 127, 149 f, 179, 185, 225 

versus morality 185 

Dissimulation 198 

Distraction 174, 181 

Division of educational activities 73 ff, 101, 106, 121, 127, 178 

Divisions of practical education 135 f 

Drawing 175 

Duproix 82, 97 

Duty, apostrophe to 187 

doctrine of, in pedagogy 203 

versus inclination 190 

versus instinct 193 

teaching the idea of 274 

towards God 212 ff, 216 

E 

Eckoff 95 

Education : 

according to age 101, 197 

aesthetic 91 

an art 72, 112, 115 

and civilization 114 

and ethics 62, 188 f 

and progress 238 ff 

and psychology 62, 169 f 

by governments 119, 240 

by parents and princes 1 17 f 

depends on the race lllff 

end of Ill 

forms of 72 

ideal value of 68 

imperfect 110 

intellectual 87, 157 ff, 169, 180 



298 INDEX 

PAGE 

Education, limits of 129, 171 

man's greatest problem 113 

necessary 66, 106 f 

negative 141, 148 

of feeling 89 

of woman 84 

origin of all good 118 

perfects man 107 f, 238 if 

physical and practical 134 

possible 67 

private and public 127 f 

recapitulation theory of, hinted 114 

should follow nature 146 

theory of 109 

towards freedom 132 

Educational activities 73 ff, 106, 121 

experiments 125 

institute 127 

postulates 38 f 

principles 70 

terms 66 

Eloquence 176 

Emile 105, 158 

Emotion 250 f 

Envy 208 

Erdmann 225 

Ethical idealism 57 

Ethics and pedagogy 270 ff 

Evolution, theory of, and education 56, 62 f. Ill f 

Kant's contribution to 57 

Example 208, 280 f 

Excessive reasoning 184 

study 168 

Experimental schools 125 

Experts in education 120 

F 

Fear 156 

Feeling as mental faculty 47, 228, 237 

education of 153 



INDEX 299 

PAGE 

Feeling, education of, neglected 89 

versus principles ^'^ 

Felbiger ^^^ 

Fichte 82,120,213 

Firmness of will ^" 

Foods ^^^ 

Forgetfulness ^^* 

. . 17Q 

Formal training ^ ' *" 

72 
Forms of education *^ 

Franklin ^^^ 

Frankness 1^6,209 

Free action ^^"^ 

culture 164,169 

T. -, 130 

Freedom 

an instinct ^ 

and morality * 

basis of Kant's theory 1^^ 

versus constraint ^^^ 

in intellect ^^^ ^ 

versus nature ^"^ 



the goal of education • ^^^ 

indshi 
Frohlich 



Friendship ^^^ * 



Geography ^. 173, 175 f, 181, 256 f 

Gesner 

Girls 19^' 226 

. Go-carts ^^^ 

God, idea of ^^^ ^ 

95 
Goerwitz 

Good, origin of the ^^^ 

Good-heartedness ^ ' 

Governments 117'.240 

178 
Grammar 

Grasse ^^^ 

Guidance of the sex instinct 219 

Habit ^ 146f 

Hamann 



300 INDEX 

PAGE 

Happiness 230, 232 

Hastie 95, 96 

Herbart 44, 94, 125, 148, 169, 200 

Herder 24 

Herz 47 

History 173, 181 

Hollenbach 97 

Horace 196 

Horstig 150 

Human perfection and progress 238 ff 

Humanity 102 

dignity of 204 f 

germs in 110 f 

idea of 116, 205 

self-dependent 103 

Humility 208 



I 

Idea of humanity 116 

Ideal value of education 68, 107, 109 

Imagination 161, 180 

Imitation Ill 

Imperatives, types of 248 

Impressions 228 

Inclination 189 f 

Individual and the race 77 

over-emphasized 82 

Influences on Kant's theory 22 

Instinct 102 

of freedom 104 

sexual 129 

Instruction 101, 106, 127, 164 ff 

Intellect 180 

Intellectual education 87, 157 ff, 169 



J 

Jahn 97 

Judgment 170 f, 182 



INDEX 301 

K PAGE 

Kant a harmonizer 79 

and Rousseau 25 flf 

not a formalist 78 

Kant's educational theory: 

aesthetic values in 90 

art and conduct in 93 

based on freedom 134 

on will 54, 65 

influenced by his psychology 52 f 

limitations of 81 fit" 

not systematic 65, 81, 178 f 

principles of, summarized 71 

sources of 21 ff 

synthesis of evolution and idealism 57 

technical terms in 66 ff, 82, 247 ff 

threefold foundation of 56 

Kant's educational postulates 38 

experience as a teacher 12, 16, 23 

idea of woman 85 f 

interest in education 19 f, 35 

life and important writings 11 ff, 95 ff 

passion for analysis 74 

pedagogy and philosophy 33 

philosophy and evolution 61 f 

and mental faculties 48 

in outline 30 ff 

psychology 44 ff 

scheme of faculties 51f 

theory of evolution 57 ff 

Kipping 97 

Knowledge and power 176 

degrees of 258 f 

Korner 96 

Kroeger 96 

L 

Language methods 172 

Leading-strings 143 

Learning 106 f, 170 f, 185, 227, 229 



302 INDEX 

PA.GE 

Learning and practice 183 

method in 178 

to think 123 

Lecture-Notes on Pedagogy: 

history of 15 ff, 134, 148, 185 f 

relation of, to Kant's philosophy 33 f 

translation of 101-222 

value of Rink's edition 73 

Lichtenberg 165 

Life and education 127 

and memory 173 

and philosophy 42 

Light 97 

Limitations of childhood 196 

of Kant's theory 81flf 

Literary classics 88 

Logic 266 f 

Logical methods 259 ff 

Lying 193 f, 231 

M 

Man 101, 106 

versus animals 102, 106, 123, 138, 157 

dependent on education 107 

moral nature of 118 

non-moral by nature 210 

of nature 229 

to be moral 113 

Manners 227 

Maps 181 

Mathematics 175 ff 

Maxim 179 f, 185 f 

Mclntyre 97 

Mechanical methods 173 

Mechanism 115, 125 

Meier 267 

Memory 53, 157, 170, 172 f, 180, 252 ff 

training 175 

Mendelssohn 47 

Mental culture 148 ff, 157 ff, 164, 169 ff, 178, 277 



INDEX 303 

PAGE 

Mental faculties 46, 50, 169, 178 f 

interaction 234 

Metaphysics and moral instruction 286 f 

Method 165 

best 183 

catechetical 184, 261 

logical 259 ff 

in aesthetic instruction 290 

in geography I73 

in history I73 

in intellectual education 169 ff 

in language 172 

in learning 178 

in moral instruction 270 ff 

in religious instruction 184, 216 

in teaching philosophy 264 f 

of memory training I75, 252 ff 

Socratic 183, 261 

Milk 137 ff 

Mineralogy I75 

Mnemonics 254 

Mode of punishment 192 

Model school 243 

Modelling I75 

Montaigne 22 

Moral anthropology 286 

catechism 205, 280 ff 

education 108, 113, 116 f, 124, 135, 179, 185 ff 

instruction 190, 270 ff, 286 ff 

law 187 

punishment 191 

training 232, 277 

value of plays 162 

Morality 198 f 

and religion .212 f 

versus discipline 186 

Moralization 123, 164, 249 

Morals 129 f 

and beauty 92 

Moscati 59 



304 INDEX 

PAGE 

Movement 159 

Miiller 95 

Music 122, 250 f 



N 
Natural philosophy ...i .... i ...» 1 1 1 176 

punishment 192 

Nature . . .39, 60, 102, 115, 129 f, 141, 146, 163 f, 210, 213, 229 f, 234 
Necessity of education 66 

of good principles 211 

Negative education 141, 148, 155 ff 

punishment 195 

Normal schools 125 

Novel-reading 174, 254 

Novels 230 

Nursing 137 

Newton 216 



O 

Obedience 130, 188 ff, 192 

Obligation 207 

Olivier .• 173 

Oratory 176 



P 

Pain 153 

Pampering 151 

Parents 102, 111, 116 f, 127, 148, 197 

Patience 154 

Paulsen 24 

Pedagogy 132, 188 f 

and ethics 270 ff 

Perfection of man 107 f, 238 ff 

Pestalozzi 120, 173 

Philanthropinists 22 

Philanthropinum 119, 126, 159 

letters on 242 ff 

Phillipson 97 



INDEX 305 

PAGE 

Philosophical basis of Kant's theory 29 ff 

Philosophy and life 42 

and pedagogy 36 f 

pedagogy of 263 flf 

Physical education 134, 164, 179 

negative 148 ff 

of the soul 164 

positive 158 ff 

utility of 137 

geography 175, 256 f 

hardening 147 

punishment 191 

Pictures 181 

Pietism 23 f, 215 

Plato 183 

Play 161, 164, 166 f 

in educational method 165 

Pleasure 153 

Positive punishment 195 

Possibility of education 67 

Postulates of education 38 

Power and knowledge 176 

Practical education 134, 164, 198 f 

Practice and learning 183 

Pragmatic culture 135 

Precocity 197 

Primitive man 103 

Princes 117, 119 

Principles necessary 211 

of education 70 ff 

versus feelings 275 

Private education 127 f 

Progress 238 ff 

Prosch 97 

Providence 113, 149, 240 

Prudence 122, 171 

Psychology and education . .'. 44, 169 f 

not a science 49 

Public education 127 f 

preferable 129, 132 

20 



306 INDEX 

PAGE 

Punishment 185 f 

negative and positive 195 

physical and moral 191 f 



R 

Race 60 f, 77, 103 

pedagogy 83, 111 f, 241 

Raumer, von 242 

Rawness 103, 105, 108 

Reading 122 

Reason 38 ff, 102, 170, 182, 184 

Recapitulation, idea of 114 

Reflection 130 

Rehorn 97 

Religion and morality 214 

and theology 211 

Religious education 211 ff 

instruction 184, 217 

Revolution in schools necessary 242 

Rhetoric 176 

Richter 98 

Right, catechism of 205 

Rink 17, 73, 134, 148 

Rosenkranz 137 

Rousseau 22, 25 ff, 59, 105, 118, 129, 137 f, 

149, 162, 169, 191, 230, 233 f, 236 

S 

Salis, von 245 

Schiller 94 

Schleiermacher 213 

Scholzer 173 

Scholastic culture 135 

Schooling, epochs in 101, 130 

Schools 125, 233 

Science T 176, 229, 235 

instruction 175 

of education 70, 134 

Segner 161 



INDEX 307 

PAGE 

Self-consciousness 156 f 

Self-dependence of humanity 103, 111 

Self -education 144 

Senses 159, 177, 180 

training of the 160, 232 

Sex in education 84, 129, 133, 218, 226 

Shame in discipline 150, 193 

Skill 116, 122, 135, 171, 176, 198, 225 

Sociability 195 f 

Social fitness 84, 162, 189 

uses of religious instruction 217 

Society and education 222 

Socrates 183 

Socratic method 183 f 

Solidarity of the individual and of the race 77 

Soul culture 163 

Sources of Kant's educational theory 21 ff 

Speech 156 f 

Sterne 163 

Strumpell 98 

Stubbornness 156 

Study, excessive 168 

Sulzer 47, 190 

Summary of principles 71 

Swaddling condemned 141 

Sympathy 200 



T 

Taste 177, 267, 290 

Teacher 127 

training of 243 

Teacher's example 281 

relation to pupils 189 

Technical terms 66 ff, 82, 247 f 

Temming 98 

Temperament 199 f 

Tetens 47 

Thamin 96 

Theology versus religion 211 



308 INDEX 

PAGX 

Theory of education 109 

Thinking 123, 185 

Tlioroughness 198, 201 

Time limit of education 129, 171 

Training 104, 106, 123, 225 

the senses 160 

Translations of Kant's writings 95 f 

Tutor 127 f 

Types of activities 75, 101, 106, 121 



U 

Understanding 53, 170 f, 177, 182 

Unity of learning 229 

Universities 120, 264 

Untruthfulness 186 



V 

Value of education 68 

Veracity 193 f 

Vices 209 

Virtue, method of teaching 278 f 

Virtues 210 

Vision 149 

Vogel 98 

Vogt 96, 135, 148, 225 

Voluntary movement 159 

Voluptuousness 219 f 



W 

Watson 95 

Whims 152 

Wildness. (See Rawness.) 

Will 54, 65, 103 f 

breaking 149, 154 

firmness of 201 f 

training 105 f 

Willmann 97 



INDEX 309 

PAGE 

Wisdom 171, 198 

Wit 170 f, 180 

Wolff, C 45 

Wolff, C. F 58 

Wolke 245 

Woman, education of 84 f 

nature of 226, 229 f 

Work , 164, 166 f, 236 

Writing 115, 122, 144 

Z 

Ziegler 32 



THE END 



yU8 



